Improve Support Forum side bar.

[dufresnesteven]

As a user arriving from the plugin directory looking for support or to evaluate a plugin's support history, I am presented with a confusing and at first glance, redundant set of links in the support forum sidebar on the right. For example, visit any plugin support forum root. (ie: ​https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/contact-form-7/)

Here is a textual representation of the sidebar:

Top Section
Plugin Image
Plugin Name
Frequently Asked Questions
Support Threads
Active Topics
Unresolved Topics
Reviews

...

Bottom Section
Views
Topics with no replies
Non-support topics
Resolved topics
Unresolved topics
All topics

Observations

Top Section

• "Support Threads" and "Active Topics" display a very similar list except "Active topics" doesn't show pinned results. Do we need both?

Bottom Section

• As a user seeking help or evaluating the plugin, I don't see how the "View" section provides any value. All the links navigate me away from this plugin and drop me in generic forums.

Solution
Don't show the view section when viewing plugins. If we must, only for admins.

[Clorith]

This sounds reasonable, the views will take you to the global forum overview, and ignores entries in the plugin and theme forums, so they may have the wrong effect from those coming in from a plugin. They make sense to present to users within the generic forums though.

Could we perhaps replace it in the plugin view with a singular entry to promote community contributions, a single link for example "Join the community and help users in the forums" that will send you to something like the forum landing page at wordpress.org/support/forums?

[renyot]

"Support Threads" and "Active Topics" display a very similar list except "Active topics" doesn't show pinned results. Do we need both?

It seems that not only the pinned results, but also the resolved results.

I can't see the Bottom Section; has it already been removed? The same in the incognito mode.

[dufresnesteven]

Sorry @renyot I went ahead and removed the bottom for plugins/themes already. I didn't close the issue because of Clorith's suggestion to call out to users for participation. That isn't resolved yet.