Close the "technical support" plugin and redirect it's support topics

[sterndata]

See ​https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/technical-support/

1. Most of the folks who posted there had searched for "technical support wordpress" or something like that.

2. The plugin is not actively maintained -- it's been 12 (TWELVE!) years since the last update.

3. Posts go unanswered, users think they're being ignored.

​https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/technical-support/

[kovshenin]

I agree, let's shut it down.

[sterndata]

@kovshenin Can you go to ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/technical-support/advanced/ and click "close down" at the bottom?

[kovshenin]

Done.

[Otto42]

Welp, step one complete. Is this worth a one off redirect? How urgent are we considering this to be?

[dd32]

In 11313:

Support Forums: Redirect the technical-support plugin forum to the Fixing WordPress forum.

See #5238.
Fixes #5944.

[Otto42]

Well, that does the trick, I was just wondering if this was going to become more commonplace that it might be better to setup a more comprehensive system for it, but sure, we can add on as needed.

[dd32]

Replying to Otto42:

Well, that does the trick, I was just wondering if this was going to become more commonplace that it might be better to setup a more comprehensive system for it, but sure, we can add on as needed.

Yeah, that's why #5238 is still open :) Given the precedence here and ease of just throwing it in there (It took less time than both of us commenting here..) I figured it was just worth doing to save time.

#5168 is also related, as it'd be intended to noindex those support forums when the plugin is no longer indexed. However, there's some downsides to noindexing "old plugins" too.. such as non-WordPress.org locations ranking instead for plugin searches.. which results in some not-great results showing up

[Otto42]

Redirecting is probably better than noindex for those cases, but does need some kind of management system. Guess we need a more comprehensive plan for these.

[dd32]

Redirecting is probably better than noindex for those cases

That depends on the reason for it - If it's problematic it's showing up in searches and attracting irrelevant threads, redirect solves the immediate problem, but a noindex would've solved it with enough time too - as it'll no longer show up in searches, but still leave the support forum there for plugin support when needed.