Do Apple 'support staff' monitor the ASC forums?

This is, as was explained in the Terms of Use to which you agreed when you registered, primarily a user-to-user forum. There are Apple employees who run the forums. The Hosts monitor the forum to make sure we all play by the rules. The Community Specialists answer questions (in certain forums) that have gone unanswered for more than 12 hours and which can be answered by a referral to a support article.

Apple doesn't read here for feedback. This is one of the busiest forums of its kind in the world. It would simply not be practical. Apple has a specific Feedback page for leaving feedback and suggestions:

Product Feedback - Apple

Apple Support personnel, based on all reports, are extremely busy. They don't have time to be reading or participating here. It's not their job and, for most of them, probably not what they want to do on their off-hours.

All that being said, this forum gives you access to some of the most knowledgeable people in the world on Apple products. This forum is not part of Apple Support. It's another, equally valuable option.

This forum is the Apple Support Communities forum “staffed” by volunteers from around the world. We are users that help each other out with hardware and software issues. Apple has very, very limited participation here except for moderation and a special group of employees that are titled Community Specialists that answer questions that have not been answered by other users.

This forum is not “official” Apple Support. When you see this welcome page, it states that you are getting help from people all over the world that are Apple users. The use of the words Official Apple support in this context may be confusing, but it does say Official Apple Support Community.

Official Apple Support Community

Tinkerer2 wrote:

Hello

A friend of mine has asked the Apple 'phone support staff to comment on a post in the ASC forums and has been told, she says, that the two lines of support and not interactive.

They are two different divisions of Apple and do not interact.

I've always understood, when I speak to the people on the Apple support phone lines,

that they are employees of Apple Inc. Is there some reason why they cannot access and comment on posts on these forums?

Both divisions are employees of Apple, but they operate separately.

If you get an email about receiving points for a helpful or solved answer, your will see that the email's domain is Apple.com. I've been here 20 years and have plenty of Apple emails with a valid Apple domain.

If you go to the US Apple support main page (https://support.apple.com) and scroll all the way to the bottom, you will see this:

If you choose not to post questions here, that is certainly your prerogative. It can be your loss, as many of the senior contributors here have been working with Macs and helping here longer than some Apple support employees have been out of nappies.

How can one be sure that this 'place' is genuine?

The simplest explanation:

When you sign up for an account, you are presented with and have to agree to Apple's terms of use,

and

You have to use your Apple ID registered with Apple to log in,

and

here are the terms of use published by Apple:

https://discussions.apple.com/terms