584895 - Suggestions box for extremely old add-ons.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Public Pages, enhancement)

Description

[patrickjdempsey]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8
Build Identifier: 

Extremely old add-ons should have a large notice that says something like "Warning, this add-on has not been supported for a very long time and does not work with any current version of Firefox.  Please use one of the following suggested replacements:"  Then a list of links would follow.  Ideally, this list would be editable (at least able to add to) by anyone with an active AMO developer account.  Ideally it would be placed directly above the "More about this add-on" section for maximum visibility.

Reproducible: Always




It is very common to run into old out-dated blogs and old forums suggesting or even linking to certain add-ons as a solution to a specific problem.  Users will come to that page and be confused that they cannot install the add-on, or if they have compatibility checking turned off, even more confused when it doesn't actually work or breaks their Firefox.  

There is also the issue of people who feel stuck in old versions of Firefox because their favorite add-ons do not work in a new version.  Having the suggestion list will help them make the transfer to a new version easier.  It also gives add-ons authors the opportunity to promote their work.  Lastly, it gives authors who may maintain both an old and new version of an add-on an opportunity to promote the new version in a way that will be easier to find that digging through the Description for a link or the "Other Add-ons by" box which many users probably do not notice.  

By allowing any other developer to add their add-on to the list, it will allow the developer community to bare the weight of the responsibility of helping users find new versions.  It would also reduce the amount of administration required to support such a feature.  Of course these links should be limited to the AMO domain, but that's not too difficult.  As with user reviews, it should also be possible to "Report" abuse if a developer has placed an inappropriate add-on that doesn't actually relate to the original.  

It might even be possible to link such a list into the Firefox Add-ons panel so if a user has extremely out of date add-ons it could list the alternatives posted on AMO.

Comment 1

[Justin Scott [:fligtar]]

I need more time to mull this over. This would require us having some sort of report or cron job that flags add-ons not compatible up to a certain point.

It seems like we should then email the developer with an automated message that says what's about to happen, just to give them the chance before we start recommending people use other add-ons from that add-on's page.

Currently users can write reviews suggesting other add-ons (with links), we have a Related Add-ons section, and of course the developer could update their description/summary to suggest other add-ons when they know they aren't going to update anymore (many authors do this).

Comment 2

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

Thanks for filing this.  Due to resource constraints we are closing bugs which we won't realistically be able to fix.  If you have a patch that applies to this bug please reopen.

For more info see http://micropipes.com/blog/2014/09/24/the-great-add-on-bug-triage/