In reply to Pippin Williamson.

I certainly respect your opinion, and you're not wrong but I think we're approaching the issue from differing mindsets.

For us, it's not just about tickets outside of our support system. That would be a pretty petty reason to complain.

The issue is the quality of support that we can provide in those places doesn't match what we can provide in our support system. On Twitter and Facebook, for example, there are still private methods of messaging users and handling more sensitive data. Even through those channels, we almost always redirect to our support form anyway to get the additional data that we need to provide the best support experience.

It still also is a frustrating double standard that some plugins are permitted to redirect their support links in the repo, but not all.

If the goal of the support metric is to indicate quality plugins/teams, it seems the review system already works really well for that and we're just calling attention to more unnecessary features.

If the goal is better user experience, I believe we can prove we already offer that to our users better than we can in the forums.

Sure, it CAN be an opportunity to differentiate yourself , sure...but the opportunity itself doesn't mean it's something we should all rally behind. There's already a way to differentiate yourself through user feedback, and this metric is entirely arbitrary in comparison.