Change page that shows topics with no replies on Support Forum

[felipeloureirosantos]

Today some people do not get support on WordPress.org support forums around the world. They reason is not just because you don't have someone to answer, but actually because volunteers can't see the topic.

That is something natural considering that users have a social media dynamic, and they don't really know how the forum works. But still they just want some help.

I believe we should change it to "Topics with no interactions". It might be a simple way that will let us into a huge improvement.

Maybe in this case we could set those condition for showing it on this page:

• Topic is open;
• Topic has no replies from users besides OP;
• Topic is set as unresolved.

Here you can see an example from pt-BR support forum. It was around 2 weeks ago.

[jonoaldersonwp]

This is a great idea.

[mariovalney]

Check the post hasn't replies from users besides OP is great.

[sterndata]

I believe this view is currently filtered on whether the OP chose whether this is a support topic or not. That's unreliable, so if that's the case, that bit of meta should be ignored. A topic has replies from someone other than the OP or it doesn't.

[dd32]

The way ​https://wordpress.org/support/view/no-replies/ works is that it queries for any topic that:

• Isn't within the review forums
• Post Meta _bbp_reply_count < 1
• topic_resolved = no

I believe this view is currently filtered on whether the OP chose whether this is a support topic or not.

The topic_resolved seems like it probably limits it to those support topics. We can probably change that to topic_resolved != 'yes'.. buuut:

In order to match the Topic has no replies from users besides OP conditional, we'd have to add a new post_meta item which is removed upon either a) topic resolve, or b) reply from non-OP and that is only added to real threads (not reviews, or hidden forums), which would probably greatly simplify this filter view as it could then be a single post-meta query and not have to include extra forum limiters, etc.

[felipeloureirosantos]

Hi there,

I believe this view is currently filtered on whether the OP chose whether this is a support topic or not. That's unreliable, so if that's the case, that bit of meta should be ignored.

The topic_resolved seems like it probably limits it to those support topics. We can probably change that to topic_resolved != 'yes'

I believe that would make more sense keep the filter, but maybe we should set this option (support topic or not) just available to moderators (e.g. when a moderator needs to highlight a topic). This way it still wouldn't show non-support topics, but users wouldn't be able to do that.

In order to match the Topic has no replies from users besides OP conditional, we'd have to add a new post_meta item which is removed upon either a) topic resolve, or b) reply from non-OP and that is only added to real threads (not reviews, or hidden forums), which would probably greatly simplify this filter view as it could then be a single post-meta query and not have to include extra forum limiters, etc.

I think that it would work just fine.

[Clorith]

One part of the solution here is in #3619, which changes the logic for seeing if a topic is resolved or not, so that "Not a support topic" are shown in the list as well.

The other problem, people "bumping" their own post, there's a postmeta entry for this already, _bbp_voice_count, if this is >1 it means someone other than the OP has interacted with the topic, could we not leverage that? (sure, it's not unique to non-reviews, but it's there and handled by bbPress already, which makes it more ideal than needing to introduce something new?)

[felipeloureirosantos]

Replying to Clorith:

The other problem, people "bumping" their own post, there's a postmeta entry for this already, _bbp_voice_count, if this is >1 it means someone other than the OP has interacted with the topic, could we not leverage that? (sure, it's not unique to non-reviews, but it's there and handled by bbPress already, which makes it more ideal than needing to introduce something new?)

I believe that it would be perfect. Maybe it would even partially fix the cache problems that we always have on these pages.

Something like that might no longer happen:

[vladytimy]

Replying to Clorith:

there's a postmeta entry for this already, _bbp_voice_count, if this is >1 it means someone other than the OP has interacted with the topic

I also think this is a good solution. It would be amazing if this could be implemented.

Actually, that is how I'm currently finding topics with OP replies only: checking if the voice count column has "1" value in it. It is a tedious process, but there are always one or two lost topics in there.

[vladytimy]

There is a scenario in which the proposed patch _bbp_voice_count == 1 fails.

When a spammer has his replies deleted _bbp_voice_count does not update accordingly. Only _bbp_reply_count updates.

So we have either:

• _bbp_voice_count = 2 (OP + spammer) & _bbp_reply_count = 0 (if OP didn't reply)
• _bbp_voice_count = 2 (OP + spammer) & _bbp_reply_count >0 (if OP replied)

So even _bbp_voice_count == 1 OR _bbp_reply_count <1 query fails in 2nd case.

See 5561. Fixing that would make Marius previous solution valid in (hopefully) all cases.

[Clorith]

In 12860:

Support Forums: Limit No Replies by voices over reply counts.

When any reply is made to a topic, they will be removed from the No Replies view, but this both limited OPs from adding details after the fact, and also means the Support Team needed guidelines to prevent "bumping".

This change converts the No Replies query to looking for "voices" (participants within a topic) over reply counts, which will allow additional details to be posted, and remove the need for rules against "bumping".

Fixes #4577.