half hour to create a support forum account
Hi folks!
I spent over a half hour just getting registered to post here!!!
Why isn't there a link here:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/users/auth
... along the lines of "Don't have an account? Create one!" that takes me to the account creation process? Seems like a no-brainer to me. Instead I have to go through "ask a question" and step after step after step to get to what I already know - that I've found (or confirmed) a bug in version 40?
I couldn't find my way here via google, nor via the inhouse search form. Just back, over and over, to a page titled "Log in / Register" that DOESN'T LET ME REGISTER.
This isn't a question. I'm just pointing out to whoever might be listening that my user experience hasn't been good tonight. I mean, I'm trying to help, and like with so many other things about Firefox, the process of posting a question is so over-engineered that you're making it almost impossible for me not to switch to another browser (the only thing stopping me is that they're ALL over-engineered).
Thanks / sorry. I'd show you an image of the broken register page that isn't a registration page except - surprise - I can't upload a 6M png.
All Replies (4)
hi, i'm not sure if understand you correctly, but what is the purpose of wanting to have an account on the site?
if you want to ask a question in the forum, you are led through creating an account during these steps (there is work going on of simplifying that procedure btw). if you want to contribute tu support.mozilla.org, then https://support.mozilla.org/get-involved is the place to start...
As far as posting images here - it is best to use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot and make sure that you do not exceed a maximum file size of 1 MB.
Otherwise, use an image hosting site and post a hyperlink here to the image.
Sorry you had problem registering. A related thread with some background info:
- Registration process for naive Mozilla Support seekers /forums/contributors/711488?last=66548
The main problem is we just can not handle the number questions, so we try to make sure everyone has to look at knowledge base articles or potentially related questions before they are able to register and post. More volunteers are always needed.
What's the bug that you have found or confirmed ? Have you posted about that anywhere ?
As for the image size limit, that is bound to be a known bug. But we have lots of bugs needing attention. IIRC we did engineer other parts of the site to accept larger images, and compress them if necessary, so I am not aware of any reason we should not do that for the support questions.
John99 said
Sorry you had problem registering. A related thread with some background info:The main problem is we just can not handle the number questions, so we try to make sure everyone has to look at knowledge base articles or potentially related questions before they are able to register and post. More volunteers are always needed.
- Registration process for naive Mozilla Support seekers /forums/contributors/711488?last=66548
First, thanks for your thoughtful reply.
I get it. It's clear to me that's the intent in constantly guiding me back through the same loop of framing my question in a single sentence, pointing me at other possibly helpful posts (which it did brilliantly, thanks in part to me thinking hard about framing that question), etc.
I still think I should be able to register on a page that's titled "Log in / Register". Pedant that I am, I sort of couldn't believe that nothing there facilitated that, so I tried all the links, and looped around and around until realizing I had to go 3 or 4 steps into my question not being answered before I could actually join this forum. That's why it ate so much time.
So, at a minimum, the page title and content should be changed to reflect that nowhere on that page can you register. As it stands, it's confusing and outright misleading.
To elaborate a little on your thinking in the linked thread - I don't think conflating joining the forum with asking a question is a good idea in the first place. There's almost a vibe of "why would you even want to join?". Wait - actually, there's a reply to me that says EXACTLY THAT!!! See below.
That's a seriously flawed attitude towards community building. I might actually be a helpful contributor here - FWIW, I've done some light contributing over at the dev forum. How do you think you get to that level of engagement with me? Hint: making it hard for me to even join in the first place is probably not the solution.
Anyway, I appreciate that you're trying to balance two imperatives: 1) stop the reflexive tier1 support stuff from flooding you, and 2) facilitate building a community. I just think the balance point hasn't been found yet.
What's the bug that you have found or confirmed ? Have you posted about that anywhere ?
Sure. Here it is:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1079578
Unlike the OP there, I gave up and reverted to an earlier version. So, the whole upgrade cycle was 3.5 hours of wasted time.
As for the image size limit, that is bound to be a known bug. But we have lots of bugs needing attention. IIRC we did engineer other parts of the site to accept larger images, and compress them if necessary, so I am not aware of any reason we should not do that for the support questions.
No problem. Please see next response for my thoughts on the image upload breaking. And thanks again for your response.
the-edmeister said
As far as posting images here - it is best to use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot and make sure that you do not exceed a maximum file size of 1 MB.
Thanks, it was a 6M png screenshot. Not a big deal. Again, it might be helpful to say "Size limit: 1M" somewhere in the vicinity of the button that invites me to upload an image. I wouldn't even have bothered to do a screenshot if I'd known (that's pretty small nowadays).
@philipp said
hi, i'm not sure if understand you correctly, but what is the purpose of wanting to have an account on the site?
Thanks, pls see above.
Thanks all!