Q: Could This (new discussion format) Be Any Worse?

>>It needs to handle a huge volume of traffic<<

And that seems to trump just about anything else!!

We all wish it were better.

R C-R wrote:

 

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

 

The reply to the forum question: "Could This (new discussion format) Be Any Worse?"

 

Apparently after todays total outage, the answer is YES!

From what I can tell, the basic problem is there is no better site management software available than Jive, & even it is not very good at meeting the needs of this one.

 

Consider: this site needs to be usable & maintain reasonable feature parity under OS X, earlier Apple OS versions like OS 9 & Systems 7 & 8, iOS, & even Windows (because Apple makes Windows software too). It needs to handle a huge volume of traffic & provide near realtime content updating throughout a distributed server network serving site users located on at least three continents. It is close to a miracle that it works even as well as it does.

…and yet Google handles vastly more traffic, across more platforms and OS versions than Apple and does it almost instantly, gracefully and well.

One thing we are bountifully blessed with as Apple customers is an endless supply of comfortable old Apple excuses masquerading as "reasons".

They have successfully discouraged the "huge volume of traffic". Looks like most users have given up.

You are seriously going to compare Google to ASC/Jive?

That ASC/Jive works badly with a tiny amount of the data that Google handles is all the comparison needed I think.

The argument was that Jive has to cope with an unacceptably large amount of processing.

It really isn't tiny for what ASC does and a Google search isn't that complex. But more importantly Google generates a tremendous amount of income.

iCloud would be a more apt comparison.

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

…and yet Google handles vastly more traffic, across more platforms and OS versions than Apple and does it almost instantly, gracefully and well.

Where on Google.com do you see any user posted content or support for anything like a question & answer format?

NOW heres the proof (as if there wasnt enough already)

level 10 user says  ADIOS to this completely messed up mess, this new format:

"I gave it a good try, I really did, but I'm throwing in the towel. It is with a heavy heart that after thirteen years of regular and frequent participation in the various incarnations of Apple Discussions I announce that I can no longer participate in the Communities"

I wont mention this users name.

but he/she is LEVEL 10  .........   13 years of work, he/she cannot take it anymore.

period, end of story.   That pretty much says it all.

People post questions. If you can help you tap reply, answer the question, then tap reply again. less then 1 year of service and i could figure it out.

Reply to PeterBreis0807

not yourself.   MYOB.

One person is not "proof" of anything, We've had high level people quit before for various reasons, usually one's only they know. They just didn't post a lament about it, they just quit. We lost more than that in the switch to the last version and some along the way.

But the sky is not falling, his not being here will not collapse the system, questions will get answered, life will go on. As I've told you before it happens all the time. Many other L10's are still here, there will be new L10's in the future. Some of the people who left I remember such as Ally (Ronda correct me on this spelling) who used to patrol this forum, she left in the last upgrade, Tamara, Jeff Bryan, Zevoneer, Don Archibald (at least I haven't seen him lately, he was the first to 100,000 points as I recall), PlanB77, and many more. And yet the ASC continued on.

Asked 30 people today in the Apple Store if they had heard of ASC. Got a 0 out of 30.

deggie wrote:

 

Ally (Ronda correct me on this spelling)

You got it. It was ali. ali brown.

Don Archibald hasn't given up. He was here just yesterday.

Thank you, I know I can count on you.

Thanks for pointing that out to me, that only the person you're replying to can reply to you.

deggie wrote:

But the sky is not falling, his not being here will not collapse the system, questions will get answered, life will go on.

Except that many who watch such things are reporting a significant decline in the number of new discussions & in the helpful replies to the new & existing ones in multiple ASC communities. Optimistically, some of that could be attributed to users finding the answers they need from existing discussions ... except that (as also been mentioned many times in the lounge) the search function very often returns suggestions listing years old, totally out of date discussions with nothing relevant to current or recent products in them.

Besides, as you said yourself, not that many people know about ASC to begin with. There is not an infinite supply of knowledgable users standing by, ready, willing, & able to take up the slack, particularly for the more arcane & vexing issues.

The bottom line is the loss of any user with a good track record of solving issues diminishes the value of ASC for everybody.