Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

I was surprised to read this article at AppleInsider stating that Apple is dismantling their forum staff. Not that the discussion areas are going away, mind you, but that the people who Apple counts on to moderate the boards are being relieved of their duty.

The reasoning behind the change is that the Apple discussion boards are increasingly becoming a place for “everything from rudeness to instructions on pirating music and software.” I have to admit, I’ve seen some posts on the discussion boards that made me grind my teeth because of their inappropriateness, hostile attitude, or flat-out stupidity.

Welcome to the INTARWEB1!!!.

Frankly, I haven’t seen a discussion board that hasn’t eventually degenerated into an immature shouting match between blowhard factions. Hiding behind the anonymity of a computer screen seems to give a significant number of people the lack of judgement and the false sense of bravado required to turn something that has enormous potential as a helpful tool into a breeding ground for idiocy. Obviously, Apple’s discussion boards are no exception.

But I’m not condemning the discussion boards. Frankly, if you can sort the signal from the noise, they’re very helpful. In fact, when I encounter a problem, the discussion area is the first place I go because it’s almost certain that someone has dealt with the issue before me, and I’m not one to reinvent the wheel.

If troubleshooting is my primary use for the discussion forums, why not just use the Apple knowledge base instead? Because it blows, that’s why. I expect, for instance, to be able to enter specific error messages into the search field and get an explanation from the knowledge base, and that almost never happens. Although there is no indication that the discussion area is going away, I would hate to see that happen because the knowledge base is utterly incapable of picking up what would be lost in the discussion areas’ absence. As a repository for user-shared knowledge, the discussion area is invaluable and needs to stay around. If Apple decides that it needs to be more tightly controlled or more aggressively managed, all the better. I prefer signal over noise, and if Apple’s intent is to improve the signal, count me in.