Closed Bug 353478 Opened 18 years ago Closed 15 years ago

Mozilla Support page is crap

Categories

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: starofsouth, Assigned: cilias)

References

()

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.5) Gecko/20060731 Ubuntu/dapper-security Firefox/1.5.0.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.5) Gecko/20060731 Ubuntu/dapper-security Firefox/1.5.0.5

Mozilla Support page (http://www.mozilla.org/support/) is a semi-random collection of (often cyclic!) links. Very unprofessional and highly confusing. Please do something about it.

For example, the first Firefox link, "official documentation" points to no such thing at all but instead to a new collection of more links, the first of which is the same as the third on the support page and the second of those is the same as the second on the support page... By this time the user is very confused and very annoyed. About now he'll probably find the Mozillazine Firefox Support forum link (the only place where he can vent his rage) and goes on posting a flaming rant that annoys the volunteers that try to help people there and probably does little good for anybody...

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Visit http://www.mozilla.org/support/

Actual Results:  
2. Be very confused
3. Get angry
4. Do something stupid

Expected Results:  
2. Find the information you're looking for from well organized passive source. If that information is not available in such a Knowledge Base type of construct, you can always talk to live people on the IRC or use MozillaZine forums
3. Problems solved & questions answered
4. Another happy end-user
Could you be more specific with regards to "well organized passive source"?
My interpretation of your report is that you want /support/ to be streamlined. Perhaps something like the /products/ page. The user clicks on the product they are enquiring about, and all the resource links are at /support/%PRODUCT%/.
Well, yes, that'd be one option. I guess it's really this page I dislike http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/
It's redundant after /support/ unless you do make /support/ just a product selection window. But then there's the common options to ponder about. Sorry for being unclear and maybe sounding a bit frustrated myself.
There are many different ways a user may arrive at <http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/>. In Firefox, you can go to 'Help->Help Contents', and the first page has an inclusion: "If you can't find what you need in built-in Firefox Help, you can find more help and support options online at Firefox Help", where "Firefox Help" is linked to <http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/>. Mozilla.com is where the product site is, and there's a support page there <http://www.mozilla.com/support/>, which also links to the Firefox Help page.
On a parallel note, going to 'Help-->Mozilla Thunderbird Help' in Thunderbird takes the user to <http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/>.

So I think removing links from Firefox Help, because they also appear on the /support/ index, is a bad idea.
I guess that leaves us with your starting proposition of streamlining /support/. Anyways I find the current state of 'consecutive' pages having overlapping links somewhat disorienting.

I'm a fairly active participant at the mozillazine forums and we sure get a lot of same FAQ questions repeated over and over again. We have our little FAQs there too but I wanted to dig deeper. Get to the source of the problem! (pun intended)
While I'm fine with streamlining the support index, but it's not my decision to make.

On the other hand, are the questions that are asked frequently, even /answered/ in the support pages? 
Yes, most of them are, when you dig deep enough. The all time favourite FAQ question is probably the 'help I updated and I've lost my bookmarks' to which the solution can be found e.g. on the knowledge base at http://kb.mozillazine.org/lost_bookmarks. It still remains a mystery to me what factors actually contribute to that problem.

Another classic is 'I updated and now I cannot connect' which usually is non-surprisingly their firewall at work.

Then there are the how to change profiles and how to backup settings.

Uninstalling is also asked quite often since there's the bug preventing the normal operation. It's covered in http://kb.mozillazine.org/uninstalling_firefox

I think this is a good FAQ http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/faq obviously many people never saw it.

I'm not too happy either about the announcements and sticky threads on the mozillazine forums either or the way the knowledge base in organized. Then again, i'm a pessimist. :)

So basically it's a 'making the ends meet' kind of problem. There's plenty of information available but the presentation isn't always great and usually the organization is lacking (I mean mozillazine forums and KB and perhaps the mozilla.org/support page).

ps. I really appreciate all the work you guys do even if I sound like a huge cry-baby.
Actually, by "support pages", I was referring to the mozilla.org/support pages. :-) (ie. user doesn't find what he/she is looking for on mozilla.org, so he/she goes straight to the forum.)

How about this: 
Have a search field featured on the support/firefox/ page, which will look for matching terms on http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/ , http://kb.mozillazine.org/ , and (if possible) the mozilla.support.firefox newsgroup, which is archived on Google.
Yeah, I figured that's what you might mean. Then the answer really is 50/50 yes and no. I think the mozillazine KB is a good resource but it's poorly organized. Many good and popular articles that describe step by step what, why and how. Maybe some of that stuff should be under the halo of mozilla.org. Screened for errors and unified in style. It'd be more deus ex machina then.

I think the combined search sounds very interesting. It could be a nice tool. The best way is to have two approaches, a very controlled and organized tree where people can logically find the answers and that procudes no fluff and then the search where people can try to find whatever crazy thing they had in mind or perhaps if they don't know what category to look in. The search will naturally produce a lot of fluff. (unrelated results)

(The people going straight to the forums is a problem because of at least two things, firstly, the folk who provide solutions there get swamped in FAQ questions and secondly, because anybody can answer the questions there, many people asking for help get wrong diagnoses of their problems and all kinds of useless solutions to try. And often people do manage to explain howto fix something but fail to explain why they must fix it. Which I think is crucially important often.

(e.g. Q:Why doesn't Firefox play music on this page? A:You need to install the activex plugin should always be accompanied by the explanation that the silly web page has chosen such a standards non-compliant proprietary solution for media and thats why the end user must be bothered to take extra steps to make it work instead of Firefox can't play it because "FoxFire sukcsss!!1")

A well laid out passive source thus is a much better thing for FAQ questions.)
I think it's worth mentioning (unless everybody already knows) but Asa asked for a top 10 Firefox support topic list on the MozillaZine forums. http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=467970
Perhaps we could copy the best features of some of the following webpages:

http://www.apple.com/support/
* support search field
* globe icon and "Select your country..." drop down for non-English support
* links to the top troubleshooting steps, such as how to reset your iPod, in the dead center of the page
* link to "Switch 101" - how to switch from Windows to Mac

http://support.dell.com/
* gives you big labeled icons for 4 easy choices at the top (I really like the icons)
* a link button for help with Unresolved Issues

http://www.opera.com/support/
* a big notice at the top telling you to press F1
    * (By the way, why don't we bundle a copy of the FAQ with Firefox Help?)

http://wordpress.org/support/
* a simple, beautifully designed page
* search box
* tags at the top
* last 10 forum topics listed below

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-home.pl?mdl=PCVE314DS&region_id=1
* nice, easy-to-navigate page
* you have only 3 hot FAQs and 5 easy choices to choose from

http://www.php.net/support.php
* plain, simple
* easy to read

What do you think?
Flaky Jake,

I agree with you that Mozilla Support page should be reconfigured, better organized, reoriented (avoid redundancy, cyclism, confusion, fragmentation) and have a better focus. But unless you can give concrete suggestions, specific propositions (constructive criticism), something tangible, like explicit, concrete expected results, this bug will disappear into oblivion. General description of a bug should be followed with expected results that should correct, fix the issue/problem. "Please do something about it" is not helpful, not useful.

I want you to know that there is nowadays a major effort being started+made to address Firefox support:
- Firefox Help Needs Your Help
http://jtbatson.blogspot.com/2007/05/firefox-help-needs-your-help.html
- Firefox support overview
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Support:Overview
The paragraph titled "Simplify navigation to relevant and enhanced content" meets, I'd say, parts of your description in this bugfile.

On a related matter, Chris Ilias, David Tenser, JT Batson and I agree on upgrading several specific issues/items of the current Firefox FAQ (and possibly in the Tips & tricks webpage).
Okay, I'm finally going to confirm this.
The support link on www.mozilla.com is now pointing to support.mozilla.com, and as far as I can tell, www.mozilla.org/support/index.html is going to continue to exist.

The redundancy factor is partially fixed, because of the change on www.mozilla.com; but it is my opinion that support pages are the responsibility of each product (In almost all cases, a user is looking for info about one product).

However www.mozilla.org has other such pages that should be per-product, like http://www.mozilla.org/download.html .

So I think www.mozilla.org/support/index.html should be split by product. Each product has *one* link, pointing the support site for that product.
Firefox: <http://support.mozilla.com>
Thunderbird: currently <http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/>
SeaMonkey: <http://www.seamonkey-project.org/doc/>
Camino: <http://caminobrowser.org/help/>

CCing reed.
Severity: major → normal
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Fine with me... that's always what I had in mind anyway by making /support/ into a portal for the other support sites. We probably want to keep the newsgroup stuff there or something and maybe some general IRC directions or something? dunno... What do you think?
WRT newsgroups and IRC, that info is in each product specific support site, with the exception of Camino.
Firefox: <http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Community+Support>
Thunderbird: <http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/forums>
SeaMonkey: <http://www.seamonkey-project.org/community>
(although http://caminobrowser.org/help/ does link to the MZ forum)

Perhaps we should include an "other" section for products not listed.
ok, sounds good. Would you have time to work on redoing the page? I'm swamped with school. :/
LOL I'm swamped with sumo. :-D
I'll blog about it.
May I hvae a try to work on this page?
(In reply to comment #17)
> May I hvae a try to work on this page?

Sure. Anybody is welcome to help.
For Camino, we'd really like just http://caminobrowser.org/help/ listed, rather than links to any specific type of resource.

(And, if you're keeping the general Usenet newsgroups section, please properly capitalize "Macintosh" ;) )
Suggestion:

* Make sure the Firefox Support Index at http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Community+Support is up to date

* Create a Thunderbird Support Index somewhere with mozilla.com layout, maybe at mozilla.com/support/thunderbird or mozilla.com/thunderbird/support

* Change mozilla.com/support to a "Select your product" page with links to different product's support index

* Redirect all support articles at mozilla.org/support/firefox/* to articles at support.mozilla.com. Either create new articles or find existing articles and update them if required.

* Find redirects for the remaining pages at mozilla.org/support
More detailed idea:

Mozilla Support Index: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/support/
Should contain a simple list of products (which?) with a link to their support index

Firefox Support Index: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/support/
Should redirect to http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Community+Support

Thunderbird Support Index: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/support/
Should contain an index of thunderbird support options

** Index of mozilla.org/support/ **

consulting:
Seems outdated. I don't know what to do with this page.

index:
This page should redirect to the Mozilla Support Index

** Index of mozilla.org/support/firefox/ **

edit, faq, keyboard, menu, mouse, options-1.0, options, profile, tips:
These pages are Firefox support articles and should be moved to support.mozilla.com by either creating a new article or by finding and maybe updating an existing one. Maybe options-1.0 should be deleted instead.

bugs:
Not support related. Should be moved somewhere else.

contact:
Contains "Do not contact us". Should be deleted or redirect to Firefox Support Index.

forums, index:
These should redirect to the Firefox Support Index.

** Index of mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/ **

edit, faq, keyboard, menu, mouse, profile, tips:
These pages are Thunderbird support articles. I don't know if they should stay or move somewhere else.

bugs:
Not support related. Should be moved somewhere else.

contact:
Contains "Do not contact us". Should be deleted or redirect to Thunderbird Support Index.

forums, index:
These should redirect to the Thunderbird Support Index.
Jesper, this bug is just for <http://www.mozilla.org/support/index.html>.
The mozilla.org/support/firefox/* redirects will eventually be implemented, but not as part of this bug. The corresponding link for each product is in comment 12.
Product: mozilla.org → Websites
Blocks: 453863
Assignee: nobody → bmo2008
I'm going to turn this into two pages, because I think if we list forums under the list of products, we're going to get users skipping over the list.
So the index will have a list of products, and the last item will be called "Other"  (like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi ) or it will be after the list.

The "Other" page (let's name it other.html) will list:
*Other Applications and Distributions Forum hosted by Mozillazine
* "mozilla.support.other" newsgroup/mailing list/Google Group
* #mozillazine  channel on IRC
http://www.mozilla.org/support/other is created. Feedback welcome.
(In reply to comment #24)
> http://www.mozilla.org/support/other is created. Feedback welcome.

"If the our main support page" <-- "the" or "our", choose one ;)

"main support page" links to http://www.mozilla.org/ but I assume it's supposed to link to http://www.mozilla.org/support/ instead.
Here's a draft of the support index, made for the new www.mozilla.org site using the images already on the site:
<http://ilias.ca/bugs/353478/mozilla%20-%20Mozilla%20Support.html>
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
I haven't seen anyone object to the draft in my previous comment, so I'll check it in to http://www-stage.mozilla.org/support/ later today. Then we can wait until transition to the new site.
This looks pretty good to me.
r49379
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Whiteboard: Will take affect when we transition to new site
The latest CVS import wiped out my previous edits to the SVN code, so here is the real revision: r50138
Whiteboard: Will take affect when we transition to new site
Component: www.mozilla.org → General
Product: Websites → www.mozilla.org
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