Create new forum for the WordPress mobile app

[pschrottky]

After community discussions on the ​Mobile Make p2 and in ​Slack discussion with the Support team in #forums, we would like to move ahead with creating a new forum to provide support for users of the new WordPress app.

Why

Currently, sending a message via the “Help” section in the WordPress app creates a ticket that’s sent to the WordPress.com support team. Moving support to a forum instead will keep answers public, which will in turn help more people find solutions more quickly in the future. This will benefit the entire .org community. Meanwhile, WordPress.com users are being encouraged to switch to the new Jetpack app, which includes features outside of WordPress core, and will be supported elsewhere.

When

Ideally, we would like the new support forum to be live by Thursday, February 2, 2023. By this date, WordPress mobile app users would start to be directed there.

Where

We noticed that this forum placeholder still exists from the previous incarnation of the mobile forum:

​https://wordpress.org/support/forum/mobile/

We would ideally like to use the same URL for the new forum.

A link to the new forum should also be added from the Forums landing page here:

​https://wordpress.org/support/forums/

[Clorith]

I don't think this would be a problem.

Just so it's covered, is "Mobile" the ideal name for it, given that apps work on tablets as well; and, for example, Windows allowing android apps to be installed on desktop and laptop computers now? (splitting hairs a little, just want to be sure we're 100% certain of the naming, and that it wouldn't instead be desired with "Apps" or similar... I'm not sold on "Apps", but you get the idea)

Is there any cause to not enable the forums before the date mentioned?

[Otto42]

​https://wordpress.org/support/forum/mobile/

That's not a placeholder from the previous version. @dd32 made that a couple weeks ago, presumably in anticipation of this.

It's not live yet, but that is indeed where it will be.

[pschrottky]

Replying to Clorith:

I don't think this would be a problem.

That's great to hear!

Just so it's covered, is "Mobile" the ideal name for it, given that apps work on tablets as well; and, for example, Windows allowing android apps to be installed on desktop and laptop computers now? (splitting hairs a little, just want to be sure we're 100% certain of the naming, and that it wouldn't instead be desired with "Apps" or similar... I'm not sold on "Apps", but you get the idea)

We refer to the "WordPress mobile apps" in a couple of places. I think while "Apps" could cover more scenarios (ie. Android apps installed on Windows), "Mobile" captures the spirit of ​publish from the palm of your hand.

Is there any cause to not enable the forums before the date mentioned?

I'll defer this to @rezzap – do you have thoughts here?

[pschrottky]

Replying to Otto42:

​https://wordpress.org/support/forum/mobile/

That's not a placeholder from the previous version. @dd32 made that a couple weeks ago, presumably in anticipation of this.

It's not live yet, but that is indeed where it will be.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

[rezzap]

I'll defer this to @rezzap – do you have thoughts here?

We may delay the activity on the forum a bit so we can put together the final pieces we need, but I don't see a problem getting this done before the suggested date.

[dd32]

​https://wordpress.org/support/forum/mobile/

I had intended on importing the old mobile forums threads into this for archive purposes, eg, ​https://android.forums.wordpress.org/, but I'm leaning towards just discarding the old forum content or pushing it to archive.wordpress.org instead, especially since it's no longer accessible.

The reason for that is that the old forums are based on an older version of bbPress which isn't PHP 8 ready (and I don't particularly want to upgrade it's support).

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As for the new forum, the only reason it's currently hidden is that there wasn't anyone to monitor it :)

We don't currently have per-forum moderation options either (plugins/themes are special with the support reps, etc) so it'd be good to know if the Mobile support team will want anything over and above a regular user on that forum.

[dd32]

In 12365:

Support Forums: Show the Mobile support forum in the forums listing.

See #6686.

[Clorith]

+1 on just archiving the old forums (I know this was discussed at some point as the likely way forward as well).

[mrfoxtalbot]

Regarding the name of the forum, we are noticing that the questions users have been asking so far are about the mobile version of their site, not to the mobile app itself.

I think that changing the name of the forum from "Mobile" to "WordPress mobile app" (or simply "WordPress app") will avoid this.

See https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6707

[dd32]

Replying to Clorith:

+1 on just archiving the old forums (I know this was discussed at some point as the likely way forward as well).

Part of the problem has been wording exactly like that :) "Archive" means various things, in my case the way forward is likely to simply remove access to the content and have the only copy of it be in a "Archived Database backup".

That's effectively what's happened already, so I'm going to move forward with that and rm -rf the bbPress files for that subdomain.

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Back to this ticket specifically, @pschrottky @mrfoxtalbot @Clorith Are there any known requirements for the Mobile support reps? Do they need special badges? Do they need additional access? etc.

I suspect they don't right this instant and this ticket can be closed, but if we want to introduce a badge later on when there's more support threads a followup ticket can be created?

[mrfoxtalbot]

Are there any known requirements for the Mobile support reps? Do they need special badges? Do they need additional access?

I would say not at the moment. If the volume increases dramatically once the new WP app directs to this forum, a separate ticket can be created as you suggested.

Thank you @dd32.

[dd32]

Replying to mrfoxtalbot:

I would say not at the moment. If the volume increases dramatically once the new WP app directs to this forum, a separate ticket can be created as you suggested.

Thanks for confirming!

Marking this as fixed for now.

If you have any questions about what could be possible, feel free to ask in #forums (or #meta) on Slack if you'd like to discuss it before creating a ticket.