How does one sign up for mozilla support?
Hi, I spent quite some time to figure out how to sign up to this mozilla support forum. So far the only way I could sign up is to find the "Ask a question" text box on a non-obvious page (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/desktop/other) which eventually got to a "Register or Sign In" page.
The "obvious" place would be a "Sign Up" link on the "Sign In" page (as is done by virtually any other community forum.
There is a link "Get Community Support" in the black top banner of the main "entrance" page https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/ but this doesn't let one sign up, which I found very confusing and frustrating.
If the purpose of this forum is to build a vibrant community of Q&A seekers and providers, then the obstacles implied in the current site design is a major *fail*.
I understand that it is necessary to somehow filter new members for "fake" accounts and spam-bots, but there are other and better ways (e.g. smart captchas or 3rd device verifications, etc) than to bury the sign-up page in a deeply nested labyrinth of pages.
I humbly ask the site-designers to re-think the 'sign-up' policy and re-design the current process or at least give some instructions on the page targeted by the "Get Community Support" link, to not discourage potential support-community members like myself.
Kind regards, -porl3D
PS: obviously I managed to sign-up, so I answered the question essentially myself. Still, I'd like to point out the awkwardness of the current design and hope that others in this forum agree and help to escalate this issue to the responsible decision makers.
Chosen solution
You register an account for support.mozilla.org when you create a thread here for the first time.
Most people coming here have a question about issue(s) they are having and Mozilla would rather people ask it with their own threads. This method also introduces people to Knowledge Base articles that may be related and perhaps answer some or all of their questions.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/forum-rules-and-guidelines#w_posting-support-requests
The more traditional way of registering would not introduce them to the KB quite the same and would also potentially greatly increase thread hijacks of people asking for support in a existing thread of same or similar issue.
This forum gets rarely any spam as it is not easy for spammers to do automated spam like on phpBB forums for example.
Mozilla actually wanted to get away from this old Kitsune platform as they went with the Lithium platform for a short while but it had issues and they resumed using this platform. The way you register an account has been much the same for almost a decade now.
Now that you are registered you could create a thread in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors
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You register an account for support.mozilla.org when you create a thread here for the first time.
Most people coming here have a question about issue(s) they are having and Mozilla would rather people ask it with their own threads. This method also introduces people to Knowledge Base articles that may be related and perhaps answer some or all of their questions.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/forum-rules-and-guidelines#w_posting-support-requests
The more traditional way of registering would not introduce them to the KB quite the same and would also potentially greatly increase thread hijacks of people asking for support in a existing thread of same or similar issue.
This forum gets rarely any spam as it is not easy for spammers to do automated spam like on phpBB forums for example.
Mozilla actually wanted to get away from this old Kitsune platform as they went with the Lithium platform for a short while but it had issues and they resumed using this platform. The way you register an account has been much the same for almost a decade now.
Now that you are registered you could create a thread in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors
Modified by James
You can click the blue "Volunteer for Mozilla Support" button at the bottom of the "https://support.mozilla.org" page to go to the "https://support.mozilla.org/get-involved" page. Click "Answer questions in the support forum" to be able to "Register to be a Contributor".
@ James: Thanks for your quick reply. I now understand the reasoning behind the current design much better.
The link to "forum-rules-and-guidelines" is also very helpful. For some reason I didn't come across that page during my "circling around" for a support-forum signup. It might be helpful for others to place this link right next to the "Ask a question" text-box on the various pages.
The argument "The way you register an account has been much the same for almost a decade now " does not really help long-time Chrome users looking to switch to alternative multi-platform options and giving Firefox a try (as in my case).
PS: So far I am very happy with Firefox. After some more testing on other platforms, I'll likely make it my "default browser".
PS-2: there is at least one other recent post by a new member who expressed a similar experience (implying I'm not the only "dummy" who didn't understand how the forum sign-up works): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1251850
@cor-el:
cor-el said
You can click the blue "Volunteer for Mozilla Support" button at the bottom of the "https://support.mozilla.org" page ...
Thanks for you help, cor-el. I did come across that button, but as a Firefox-"newbie" I was deterred by not feeling competent to volunteer as a forum help-guru. So I kept looking for a simple sign-up option for regular "dumb users".
Maybe it would be helpful to add a little note near that button explaining that one doesn't have to be a Firefox "expert" to sign-up and ask simple questions.
- my 2 cents, porl3D