In reply to Zachary Skaggs.

I actually like the new highlight of the support forum.

We do not use the support forums on .org as the primary means of support for any of our large plugins (like https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-digital-downloads/), but we do pay attention to them.

Frankly, I believe that ignoring the forums, with or without a sticky notice, is a disservice to yourself and your team.

Can it be annoying to have a few support questions outside of your main support system? Absolutely, but that's not really that different than getting questions via Twitter, Facebook, email, etc.

The .org forums actually provide an excellent tool to help potential users gauge the quality of the plugin and the support provided by the team behind it.

Help Scout and other ticketing systems are private (as they should be), but the wp.org support forums are public. Use that to your advantage! Use them as a tool to advertise how f'ing awesome your team is.

Users that see great support given in the forums are going to be far more likely to use and be happy with a plugin than a user that sees nothing but silence on dozens or hundreds of posts.

The new highlight of resolved support posts is a superb opportunity for all plugin authors to help make their plugin stand out from the crowd.