Apple Forums

[TOS 1.04]

I signed up on the Apple forums about 5 years ago when i needed to ask some questions... i then continued to use it and joined in with discussions and helping others. I stopped using it shortly after, finding that the point system they used to encourage the helping of users created spamming of generic fixes and made for lots of abrasive exchanges between the excessive point gatherers.

 

I recently returned because i wanted to post about the recent nvidia device driver update included in 10.6.5 which has some pretty bad bugs... and started using the forum again more generally.

 

This time i found not only the previous problems but also excessive editing of posts by invisible moderators... some controversial topics that i had discussed in an open and fair manner had simply been deleted, and any disputes between the native angry apple point addicts (who are very assuming, stubborn and some plainly irrational) are deleted or excessively edited to the point where you are not able to defend yourself.

 

You simply cannot voice your opinion - or even if you try to defend your advice/posts from a persistently rude apple point goblin with facts with even the hint of an annoyed tone then your response is deleted because it is irelivent to the thread... So basically it's ok to go around saying your wrong... but it's not ok for those people to defend their opinion or sight sources to support facts. It's kind of upsetting because that is the first place many new mac users go - and for them to see all of this casts mac users and mac techs in a bad light.

 

This has left me feeling like the whole forum is very unfriendly for any kind of discussion... and yet ironically the name of the forum is Apple Support - Discussions, i think a more accurate name would be Apple's highly moderated crowd sourcing for support

 

It seems so absurd compared to more open forums like this one where only spamming is censored. What are you're experiences and thoughts?

[Guest Georgie 31]

They don't let anything go off topic, but yes it is the forum where you can easily find basic troubleshooting information. For more help you need to login to forums like http://www.insanelymac.com where you can have detailed discussion and get personal attention/ response to your problems.

[QckSlvrGuyInKC]

I'm willing to bet that any problem threads with the Mac App Store on Apple's forums are going to be deleted soon, since it'll just lead to bad press.

[doggiehowser]

Two years down the road, and things haven't changed one bit. looks like I wasn't the only one.

 

I count myself as pretty computer savvy, having grown up with an old Apple IIe/Adlib device before moving to PCs then Macs, and working on UNIX/VMS at work.

 

So I recently got myself a Mini 2012 and tried to load Windows x32 on BootCamp and found that Apple seems to have dropped support for 32 bit versions on the newer platforms (contrary to what's normally posted. A few other users have also complained of the same problem. I finally found a workaround using another of my older Macs to download the windowssupport drivers for 32 bit and I linked to the right Intel chipset/graphics drivers that would work for the Mini.

 

So it's weird to be accused of going off topic when the change in direction when I get asked why I need 32 bit support (and I answer that) and then told off to go buy a PC.