Private support questions to mailing lists

Mozillians
#1

I’m administrator of both the Firefox and Thunderbird support mailing lists at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/.

I have the Firefox and Thunderbird support lists set to hold messages from non-members, because they get around 3 messages a week from users thinking the support lists are private support addresses. When I ask how they found the address, they all say they found the email address at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/.

I don’t know if other lists are getting support questions from non-members, but users looking for support on that page should be pointed to support.mozilla.org. Unfortunately, the page content is generated from a script that looks at raw-ng-list.txt. My first thought is that we should just remove the support lists from that page, but I wonder if other lists are getting support questions from non-members.

What does everyone think the best solution is? Add something to the top of the page pointing support requests to support.mozilla.org? Remove the support lists from the page? Something else?

1 Like
#2

I wonder what’s the current use of these two mailing lists and how are they aligned with other Mozilla Support channels?

/cc @kelimuttu @couci

#3

I did not know those lists existed, and the danger is that questions from users either get ignore, or we are dependant on one person to manage it. I think that the best option would be to remove the lists so that people head to the SUMO forums.

#4

I agree with @plwt I didn’t even know they existed and for sure we are not officially supporting them.

So I would suggest to close them

#6

@cilias what’s the original purpose of the mailing lists? I would agree with the others to remove them but we need to also check if we’re not banishing their initial purpose of putting the lists there.

#7

This seems to have turned into a discussion about closing the mailing lists, which is not the issue.
The Firefox and Thunderbird support mailing lists are part of the forums on lists.mozilla.org that have a bi-directional feed to/from the the newsgroup server news.mozilla.org, which is bi-directionally mirrored with the corresponding Google groups. The newsgroup, the #firefox IRC channel, and the mailing list are niche venues for those who prefer NNTP, IRC, or email, and are specifically looking for support in those venues. I think that list of secondary venues can include the subreddit for those specifically looking for support on Reddit, etc.

They are linked at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/get-community-support and https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/
They moderated as per the policy at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/cancellation/ which was established in mozilla.governance.
If you’d like to see the amount of activity and answer rate, check the archives for support-firefox and support-thunderbird.

I expect them to exist until news.mozilla.org is shut down, in the same way #firefox exists until irc.mozilla.org is shutdown.

Messages from people who are not subscribed to the list get held for moderator approval, so I am able to respond those messages, explaining that the address is for a public community forum, not a private support address. I also ask where they found the address, and every answer is https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/

The problem is that people go to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/ looking for support, and send email messages to the list addresses. Is there anything we can do until bug 1309226 is fixed?

#8

If this is a channel we offer support from a Mozilla property, I would say we should evaluate who’s running it, how support is being done and see how is it aligned with the overall support experience the SUMO team owns (which is also multichannel and includes non-mozilla properties)

@rjensen @pmcclard to have this in your radar.