Apple's Discussion Forums: an important technical support resource

Question

There have been ongoing discussions within Apple regarding whether or not to continue supporting these discussion forums, specifically, the issue of continuing to employ live humans to monitor and moderate them. It seems to me that it would not be a significant drain on Apple Computer Inc.'s resources to employ 1-2 persons to comb this (very large) discussions site for significant unresolved issues having broad relevance to the Mac user community. Said issues could then be routed either to a small, forums-dedicated team of Apple engineers, or distributed to the larger second-tier support group such that each tech rep would only have to handle a few responses per week (or month, depending on the size of the available employee pool). The net benefits to Apple -- in terms of reduced number of tech support calls, a more-empowered, self-sufficient, and satisfied user base, and increased goodwill toward the company -- would, in my estimation, more than repay the salaries and efforts required to keep these discussion forums running efficiently and effectively. I believe Apple is savvy enough and responsible enough to know this; they have probably done the calculus. Perhaps, then, our most important task is to let the parent firm know that we use and value this resource. Hopefully, Apple managers will note and make the right decisions.

Answer 1

withdrawn