That's a lot of stuff.

Regarding locked threads, they are auto-locked after 6 months. Due to frequent changes in Firefox, they tend to go out of date... also, we encourage users to post their own question and include their system information, since OS, Firefox version, and add-ons are so often relevant. But I think it would be a good idea to make it easier to refer to an old post if you know that one is highly relevant.

When you're researching solutions, the site generally tries to find Knowledge Base and Forum matches for your query. Once you pick one of those, it turns out to be pretty difficult to keep in mind enough context to suggest related articles that actually are relevant to the question. Or perhaps it's fruitless to try being relevant, because the reader may have developed a new idea about the nature of their question? Anyway, the site used to have links to related articles, and discovered that at least at this point, the software wasn't doing a very good job. More info in this thread (on the separate forum for discussion among "contributors"): https://support.mozilla.org/forums/co.../709718. Maybe you have some ideas for improvement that would make it possible to restore this feature?

Regarding adding to Knowledge Base articles, it's a wiki and you can mark in proposed edits 24/7. Check out this page for how to get started: https://support.mozilla.org/get-involved/kb

jscher, Thanks for the quick and helpful reply. I found the info brought some clarity to my second concern (of archiving). I better understand why archiving now occurs when it does. I would like to point out tho - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/959999?esab=a&as=aaq - was closed just 4-months after the last post, so probably 6-months after the initial question. I speculate tho that could lead to an active topic being closed in the middle of a debate (eg., just a day after the last post).

"But I think it would be a good idea to make it easier to refer to an old post if you know that one is highly relevant." - I very much agree. One might manually (via user-suggesteions) connect questions together, rather than "inadequate software algorithms" trying to find related topics. [The examples you gave at the above link were very inapplicable to the given topic -- and reminds me somewhat of the questions that are suggested when I try to ask my own question].

I'll make one possible suggestion here -> when linking articles one to the other, maybe the algorithm could focus on "unique phrases" rather than "statistical frequency of common words". For example, in both - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/920556 - & - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/959999?esab=a&as=aaq - there are the unique phrases "diagonal stripes" and "(addon|status) bar shim". However, if focusing on "addon" which is the most repeated word, then you might see incorrect suggestions.

I was also not aware of the "knowledge-base" proper per-se (or the SuMo foum either). I would suggest that the KB (knowledge-base) incorporate a site-map (and in general take a more wikipedia approach). This seems to be the closest I found - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox And while that URL is a gateway to much knowledge, their is almost no indication of such. Neither on that page (no "knowledge-base" mentioned on page or in url), nor on google when I did a query. And just looking at the above URL I would have imagined that these were only general kinds of answers, not a whole nested hierarchy of informative topics (again, I note the lack of an effective site-map).

Moving forward, could you clarify on how the best way is to "file a complaint"... was I correct in posting here, or should I have posted this question at SuMo forums - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox - Or is their an administrator email to pose such suggestions to?

Thanks again for all your help, I would like to see support (questions/threads/knowledge-base) grow and be able to help people in a simple, straight-forward manner.

Reading your post through, it looks like you want things to be simplified here at SUMO. I will answer your questions to the best of my knowledge.

I don't think this is the appropriate place to discuss site-policy, but when I hit "contact us" link, there is no email-address, no link to an administrator... the most helpful link I found was "forums"... which contained some 300 forums which... based on past experience,

When you click the Contact us link at the bottom, that redirects you to Mozilla's office all around the world. When clicking an individual location, say, Mountain View, it brings up that location's information. Reason for no phone number is because Mozilla offices DO NOT provide technical support directly, that;s what SUMO is for. The administrators for this site are not linked on the Contact us but rather on the Kitsune Champions page since Mozilla Corporate and SUMO admins are two different things.

Moving forward, could you clarify on how the best way is to "file a complaint"... was I correct in posting here, or should I have posted this question at SuMo forums - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox - Or is their an administrator email to pose such suggestions to?

Suggestions on improving SUMO should be redirected to the SUMO Contributors forum where fellow contributors discuss on how to make the site better. You can make a thread there by clicking Post a new thread at the top. Also regarding your contacting an admin, you can find them at the Kitsune Champions page.

I'll make one possible suggestion here -> when linking articles one to the other, maybe the algorithm could focus on "unique phrases" rather than "statistical frequency of common words". For example, in both - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/920556 - & - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/959999?esab=a&as=aaq - there are the unique phrases "diagonal stripes" and "(addon|status) bar shim". However, if focusing on "addon" which is the most repeated word, then you might see incorrect suggestions.

EDIT: This can actually be posted in the SUMO Contributors forum

I hope this answers your questions.

Thanks Moses... yes - simplified. I felt quite lost at support.moz when I first came. There was a bug that prevented me from registering, and no info on the login page as to why or how (ie, a workaround). And from there, I was still lost for quite some time. Your answers have helped me, both to understand your position, as well as to find my way around.... but I think that still, many a newcomer to the site might find themselves as dizzy and put-off as I was.

I personally would make changes to the layout of the site in so many ways, and yet I do understand the move to present the site in the way the administrators have chosen.... to present it in a simple manner (ie, no distracting links)... yet I suppose I have a different definition of "simple".

Nonetheless, I'm not suggesting an "all or nothing" approach, but rather more a transitional approach, where some "traditional" ways of navigation and finding relevant content and of site-layout are mixed in with the new approach.

Like in a typical forum, you have categories of boards such as: "post a question for answers", "search-query for answers", and "navigate a site-map for answers". There are several things I like about SuMo, but I wish it would broaden it's design scope. I think (and forgive the analogy), that Windows 8 wanted to simplify it's interface (for tablets, kids, etc), and so they created the mandatory start-screen. Such a screen WAS simple, but it also disoriented people more accustomed to "traditional" forms of navigation, such as the desktop/start-menu.

So there is some utility in the Start-screen approach, but I do hope that SuMo, (like Windows 8.1), accommodates those of us who are "handicapped".

Thanks for your answers which have been quite helpful. If it weren't for them, I would've never read about the "workaround" on how to register... so that I could in turn have many more of my firefox conundrums solved!

I'm going to answer your final questions/remarks before I close this thread unless you have anything else to add?

And from there, I was still lost for quite some time. Your answers have helped me, both to understand your position, as well as to find my way around.... but I think that still, many a newcomer to the site might find themselves as dizzy and put-off as I was.

I do understand this, but we have our SUMO Contributors forum if they need any help, of course.

I personally would make changes to the layout of the site in so many ways, and yet I do understand the move to present the site in the way the administrators have chosen.... to present it in a simple manner (ie, no distracting links)... yet I suppose I have a different definition of "simple".

The SUMO design and layout you see now is actually a redesign from a previous design when we were using Tikiwiki and made the jump to Mediawiki (LOVE IT!) The redesign happened around 2012 and was quite nasty. Looked like the Thunderbird support forum (see support.mozillamessaging.com. Yuck, right?) And we are in the middle of transferring everything from the Thunderbird forum to SUMO so we can support Thunderbird, Firefox, Firefox OS, Firefox for Android, and Webmaker in one place! Quite neat.

Blast from the past for me! See attached picture. That's before SUMO's re-design to this! :D

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