expanding support options/needs as the fx user base grows

[VanillaMozilla]

I don't think a detailed discussion of the merits of IRC is the point of this thread. Thanks.

[chofmann]

Another question I have is around the process for surfacing articles or categories on http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mozilla_Firefox and/or http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Issues_%28Firefox%29

how does that work now? who is involved?

I've been thinking about some ways we could surface some analysis on page hits to the knowledge base and forums, and search queries that users type in, and other things like this so we could make sure the most frequently requested information is easy to access.

for instance I'm seeing a increasing frequency of problems and/or questions about "firefox printing" to the webmaster@m.o alias and it looks like we don't surface much info about printing in the two doc's listed above.

anyone have thoughts on this?

[Alice]

Another question I have is around the process for surfacing articles or categories on http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mozilla_Firefox and/or http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Issues_%28Firefox%29

how does that work now? who is involved?

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mozilla_Firefox redirects to http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox as the article is now named. Right now, the Firefox article is a generated article that merges two separate articles, http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_FAQs and http://kb.mozillazine.org/Issues_with_Firefox ...but that could change at any time by simply editing the page.

The "Firefox FAQS" and "Issues with Firefox" articles that now comprise the content of the "Firefox" article are manually edited as new Faqs and Issues get noticed, usually because they surface on the forums. I do a lot of the updates for "Firefox FAQS" and "Issues with Firefox" although everyone is free to edit the pages.

The alphabetized links in all Category pages, including http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Issues_%28Firefox%29 are automatically generated, based on which KB articles are included in the category. Grouping Firefox articles on "Category" pages is the new system of organizing KB articles - See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Rules/Categories for a summary of the process.

[ChrisI]

I'm a little unsure what the impetus of this thread is. Are we talking about improving support for users, or for support personnel? There's a conflict between the two.

I found this comment on Eric Shepherd’s blog very interesting: "I tried to call their customer service (ha!) but on top of their horrible support they’ve added an obnoxious automated system that insists on making you jump through the hoops you used to be able to demand they not make you jump through (admittedly with varying degrees of success)."

Too much automation can be a bad thing. In an ideal world, whenever a person needs help with Firefox, a real Firefox expert should magically appear beside the user, with knowledge of the user's setup, and ready to help (sorta like the Great Gazoo, only don't call users "Dumb-Dumbs"). Answering the same question repeatedly may be frustrating for support volunteers; but if it's the first thing users do, it's quick and convenient for users. Could you imagine doing private support?

I suppose the closest thing to the Great Gazoo we have is telephone support....Whoops. Even if it were still on the support pages, $40 USD is way too much. Even private email support would be an improvement. I run the support-firefox and support-thunderbird mailing lists, and I occasionally get requests for approval, when non-members send messages to support-firefox or support-thunderbird, thinking it's private email support. I think I might offer private email support, for $5 CAD per issue.

I consider myself a user who is willing to research documentation, when I have a problem with any product. In such cases, the first thing I look for is a search engine. I go to the Help menu, open the help viewer, and do a search there. If I don't find what I need, I go to the product site, and look for a search field for the online help documentation. If I don't find what I need, I look for a support forum, and try find a search field for that.

A couple of months ago, after getting a webtree account, I discussed with David Tenser, some of the things I wanted to do with the Mozilla.org support site. One of them was to add (and prominently display) a search field, that would search the mozilla support site, the mozillazine knowledge base, the support newsgroup (via Google Groups), the support forum, and if possible the IRC channel all in one shot. I asked around, and didn't find a way to do that; so I just added a knowledge base search field. Among the things I still plan to do, is create a separate page for community support, which contains a search field for each forum, so we can streamline the front page. I made the first mock up of it yesterday (without forum specific searches), and I'm waiting to hear back from David. You can see it at:
http://ilias.ca/temp/index.html
http://ilias.ca/temp/forums.html

I also noticed something cool in Google's Picasa2. In the Help menu, there's a direct link to the support forum.

I think there should be a direct link to the Firefox support forums page in the Firefox Help menu. Before someone complains that the Help menu is already too large, I think a couple of items can be removed from the Help menu. "Release Notes" is a definite.

I don't see "real-time vs delayed" response as being an issue, when it comes to IRC vs. newsgroups vs. web-forums. With the amount of traffic the support newsgroup and web-forum get, a user will get an answer within a few minutes (My ISP has me on hold for longer). If there's going to be any prioritizing of support venues, it has to be on what web users are more familiar with. Unless someone can show me that the large majority of web users know how to use IRC or newsgroups, I wouldn't try to promote them much. It breaks my heart to say that, because I'm a newsgroup guy. And although I love newsgroups, I think asking users to download another program for support is bad.


Improving support for support personnel

One thing I've found about Mozilla support is that there are a lot of "Jacks of all trades". Perhaps its just me who's guilty of this. In addition to running the firefox support list, I also run the thunderbird, mozilla-suite, other, accessibility, and calendar support lists, as well as the test, and test-multimedia list. I answer questions in all of those lists, except for calendar and accessibility. I contribute to the www.mozilla.org support site, as well as maintain my own website, which not only requires knowledge of support issues, but knowledge of web coding (HTML,CSS,etc.), and the need to proof-read and organize everything, and keep it all updated with every new release.

I often find myself spread too thin; and perhaps there are others in the community doing much of the same. There needs to be more designation of responsibility. Thunderbird helpers should leave Firefox support to someone else, and vice versa. Designate people for adding content to documentation. Designate others for proof-reading, and others for presentation. There was an enquiry a while back about what are the ten most frequent support issues. Why not designate someone to continually maintain that page? I think many Mozilla developers will attest to how great the impact of Deb Richardson and Eric Shepherd has been on the Mozilla Developer Center; and I think the support community has been more chaotic than organized. Expanding support would be nice, but there's a lot of room to improve what we already have.

What are the current problems that you encounter and how can things get better in areas like:
--server loading,

That one is simple (at least to me). MozillaZine is always slow or unavailable during the first couple of days after a major release. Use the Community Giving Program to help MozillaZine not have server performance issues.

[Alice]

There was an enquiry a while back about what are the ten most frequent support issues. Why not designate someone to continually maintain that page?

Here's the forum topic, for the record:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=467970 top 10 support topics

But, why maintain that page when the Firefox support forum already includes this Announcement pinned to the top of the forum:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=106431 INSTANT HELP — Frequently Asked Questions

[Alice]

I'm seeing a increasing frequency of problems and/or questions about "firefox printing" to the webmaster@m.o alias and it looks like we don't surface much info about printing in the two doc's listed above.

anyone have thoughts on this?

I did a forum search on Firefox printing and came up with lots of recent hits. I just added an entry on Problems printing web pages to http://kb.mozillazine.org/Issues_with_Firefox#General if that helps.

[Frank Lion]

What I like about the latest reply is that it shifts the focus from IRC can do this or forums can do that over to "I'm a human and I'd feel more comfortable with you being at %(that)s distance." I think that's a valuable finding, in that the support entry points should probably advertise the different mediums not so much in how they technically work, but how humans interact there.

And more importantly even, that there is not one good and working solution.

Glad you noticed that point.

So, down to practical matters. We have considered the comfort level of users, which is an important factor in how effectively information is understood, now let's consider the comfort of support members, in particular, in these Support forums.

Simple. Get rid of Guest posting. The 'Hey wow! freedom, man! no need to register, man', stuff of yesteryear just doesn't cut it any more, especially as none of those involved in the decision, actually ever do more than a one day token of answering Support questions, if that.

Compare and contrast the number of regular users here with that of the number of users who regularly answer questions in Support. There is a grand total of about SIX users, who regularly answer questions in Firefox Support*. Why? - no one else can put up with the constant abuse from, and confusion of having multiple, 'Guest' posters. Even with the users that do work Support, the 'burn out' rate is high, requiring the odd PM, (haha ) to suggest 'toning it down'.

Just the act of registering here, seems to bring about a magical transformation in users with problems. Look at Firefox General - suddenly questions are being answered by all sorts of, and numerous, existing users. Now, why would that be? Let's be clear, I will not answer questions in Firefox Support and would not expect anyone else to.

The choice here is a clear one. Either accept the fact that the Firefox Support Forum here will always offer a poor support service - because 6 regular people cannot possibly effectively answer all the vast number of support questions there, or....do something about it.

I will cover the KB and written information side, in another post, save that the present KB side is a vast improvement to that previously.


*this figure does rise, but only in direct proportion with the current 'normal behaviour pattern' of 'Guests'.

[RobertJ]

Get rid of Guest posting. The 'Hey wow! freedom, man! no need to register, man', stuff of yesteryear just doesn't cut it any more, especially as none of those involved in the decision, actually ever do more than a one day token of answering Support questions, if that.

Compare and contrast the number of regular users here with that of the number of users who regularly answer questions in Support. There is a grand total of about SIX users, who regularly answer questions in Firefox Support*. Why? - no one else can put up with the constant abuse from, and confusion of having multiple, 'Guest' posters.

I agree with the comment on getting rid of guest posters. Often it is hard to tell if you are trying to solve as issue for one person or more since people with similar issues jump on the thread as guest.

I personally haven't seen much "abuse"; however, being on a Mac I tend to focus on other Mac users and generic issues that don't require knowledge of Win.

[VanillaMozilla]

Question for the original poster: Now that we have given our best ideas on the subject, are we going to see any feedback, and preferably some implementation? Just wondering. I know you're busy and all, but it's not often that we see any information flowing this way or see any evidence of responsiveness. Quite honestly, we have seen such requests for information before, and I don't think I have even seen a note of thanks.

In fact, I guess that is one of the problems, not only in human terms, but in terms of access to information. Moz documentation, such as exists, tends to be scattered, and not always even correct. Do you know where we get our information? From other users. Sometimes from Bugzilla, which is often rather cryptic. From miscellaneous fragments on Mozilla blogs. From fragments turned up by Google. And occasionally from the Knowledge Base, but we're also the ones who write it. It's a bit circular.

[Frank Lion]

I personally haven't seen much "abuse"; however, being on a Mac I tend to focus on other Mac users and generic issues that don't require knowledge of Win.

Yes, it's always there, sort of a drive-by thing. Unfortunately it always peaks around the time of any release, which is exactly the time when we need people helping in the Support Forums. A good many people have stated either here in the forums or to myself personally, that will categorically not post in the Support Forums, whilst Guest posting is allowed.

Obviously, this only relates to a percentage of our 'Guest' posters. However, that percentage is sufficiently high for this to remain an on-going problem for potential support help from Registered users here and, indeed, to other 'normal' Guest posters alike.

Certainly, for example, when Addons earlier this year introduced registration in order to leave 'comments' there, the abuse/troll level immediately dropped by about 80%.

[RobertJ]

Certainly, for example, when Addons earlier this year introduced registration in order to leave 'comments' there, the abuse/troll level immediately dropped by about 80%.

I participate in the Apple forums; they all require registration.

[BenoitRen]

If it ever gets decided to remove guest posting from Firefox Support, please don't remove it from SeaMonkey Support. We don't have a problem with guest posters (who often have the reflex to register after a couple replies anyway), and some regulars even post as guests sometimes, if not always.

Speaking more generally, I don't know if removing guest posting is that good of an idea as it seems to be. Tons of places ask that you register already, and it pisses off users and puts a psychological barrier between him and the message board. This may be just me and a select group of other people, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

[VanillaMozilla]

Google searching on the Knowledge Base. Now on your own desktop. Nice. Thanks, Kerz, or whoever.

[BenoitRen]

Thinking more about this, what sucks is that we can't search further than 3 months back for message board posts.

What would also help a lot is displaying the thread starter's user agent string automatically, without being a mod. Then we don't have to waste time by asking questions like: "What version of the browser?", "What OS, what version?".

[kerz]

I just turned on UA's for the whole site, and it crashed apache for about 3 hours. So, that won't work for now.

jason