Creation of iOS Beta rant thread

[gwhizkids]

We’ve got 3 distinct groups operating on the beta threads right now:

-Old hands who are there most of the time most of the year
-Newbies who are excited about the new iOS betas
-Posters with gripes, but nothing much to add constructively

None of these groups is inherently good or bad. Newbies have to start somewhere. Gripe posters may have something they may legitimately not be happy about but not too much to say about solutions.

My suggestion, which @Weaselboy suggested I bring here, is to create a “rant” thread in the iOS forums to give the gripers a place to vent without upsetting others. I, and others, get the gripes, but also feel they don’t add much to the discussion. “iOS 13 sucks” might make them feel better but the number of such posts we’ve seen this year (likely due to the rougher nature of the iOS 13 beta than that seen with iOS 12) really clogs up the thread and gets a lot of blood boiling (I plead guilty to such feelings at time).

Creating a “rant” forum would give people with gripes somewhere to freely vent and the rules would be such that griping such be accepted without judgement. Bullying and name calling would not be acceptable (as it isn’t elsewhere). I likened it to a “scream” room where people who are frustrated can go, say their piece and not have others jump all over them for whatever. Having this would (hopefully) free the beta forums for constructive discussions.

As I was typing this, it also occurred to me that there should also be a “newbie” thread, where people who are new to iOS or the beta process could post questions and hopefully not get lectured about failing to back up, installing a developer profile without having a developer account, using unapproved installation tools, not knowing how to downgrade, etc... Again, a “judgement free” zone, where newbies can get answers without moralizing (again, I freely admit to being guilty of this at times).

These threads could form the 3 permanent pinned posts for every version of iOS: Speculation, Rant and Newbie (I did not include the beta threads because, of course, they change with every beta).

This might require a bit heavier moderation hand, to move posts to the appropriate thread (hence my inclusion of mods in this discussion).

At the end of the day, the goal is to reduce the need for moderation and foster more productive discussions overall.

Thoughts?


@dwfaust @Feenician @maflynn @Weaselboy

 

[Feenician]

I'd love to see more structure and less off-topic ranting in the beta forum. For many of us the beta forum is a place to lend help, seek help and just discuss and speculate, and people flipping out and demanding someone be fired or the like for a feature regression in a beta gets thing way off track. Even the most constructive responses (actually, weirdly but often, especially the most constructive responses) just seem to serve to make things worse.

As for a "rant" thread I fear an echo chamber for the angry and the misguided might simply whip up more ill feeling than we already have, and that it'd spill out in possibly even worse ways.

I am much more partial to the idea of a newbie thread. A pinned topic where we gather resources and guides for people not familiar with the cadence and challenges of a beta. So, maybe topics like "how to prepare to run a beta safely", "guide for new gestures in iOS", "how to write a good bug report", "how to revert to production iOS" and so on. I'm sure others could think of many things to add to that list. Also, perhaps gentle reminders that beta development is a process and that performance and features may get worse before they get better.

 

[MozMan68]

I just think the thread title should be changed to, “You Know What Really Grinds My Gears About The iOS13 Beta?”

 

[Feenician]

I just think the thread title should be changed to, “You Know What Really Grinds My Gears About The iOS13 Beta?”

Framing it humorously like that might help to take the edge off it. The way I was thinking about how a rant thread might actually work in practice was more "small room for angry people to get angrier with revolving door to the rest of the forum", which would surely be a disaster.

 

[AZhappyjack]

It might be a good idea. I would definitely read it for the comic effect... but doubt I would post much there... most of us know what the beta process is and how to participate (use the software, report the problems to Apple via Feedback, and then post comments identifying the issue and any workarounds)... but there are plenty who get the betas then post comments like "worst ever" with no specificity, and (almost guaranteed) not bothering to report (anything useful) to Apple...

I would pity the mod staff, though... it could easily turn into a full-time job for the mods.
[doublepost=1562913317][/doublepost]

I am much more partial to the idea of a newbie thread. A pinned topic where we gather resources and guides for people not familiar with the cadence and challenges of a beta. So, maybe topics like "how to prepare to run a beta safely", "guide for new gestures in iOS", "how to write a good bug report", "how to revert to production iOS" and so on. I'm sure others could think of many things to add to that list. Also, perhaps gentle reminders that beta development is a process and that performance and features may get worse before they get better.

This would be a fantastic idea IF the noobs would use it as intended... experience tells me that people will complain while ignoring any effort by us (seasoned users, mod staff and more) to help talk them off the ledge. Sadly, people only see, read and hear the parts of a discussion that they want to see, read or hear.

You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've accomplished something.

 

[Feenician]

It might be a good idea. I would definitely read it for the comic effect... but doubt I would post much there... most of us know what the beta process is and how to participate (use the software, report the problems to Apple via Feedback, and then post comments identifying the issue and any workarounds)... but there are plenty who get the betas then post comments like "worst ever" with no specificity, and (almost guaranteed) not bothering to report (anything useful) to Apple...

I would pity the mod staff, though... it could easily turn into a full-time job for the mods.
[doublepost=1562913317][/doublepost]

This would be a fantastic idea IF the noobs would use it as intended... experience tells me that people will complain while ignoring any effort by us (seasoned users, mod staff and more) to help talk them off the ledge. Sadly, people only see, read and hear the parts of a discussion that they want to see, read or hear.

You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've accomplished something.

Yes, I didn't want to appear too cynical but very often the people who think they experts are really in the unfortunate part of the Dunning-Krueger curve. They know enough to know there's a beta, perhaps that they don't need to register for the dev beta, they may be sideloading (pirating, for the most part) so they will never self-identify as noobs. They won't have an archive backup, won't understand that things can break and so on. Still, I think an attempt at education can only be a good thing.

 

[Weaselboy]

I'm trying to envision how one would moderate this. So we now have a Bug Fixes, Changes, and Improvements thread for each beta, and the suggestion is to add a separate thread something like General Beta Complaints?

So "I really hate how they made the wifi toggle smaller" would be okay in the first thread since it is specific. But "This last beta is the most unreliable ever" would go in the second thread since it is not specific and not a bug fix, change, or improvement (so off-topic). Is that the essence of the idea?

 

[AZhappyjack]

I'm trying to envision how one would moderate this. So we now have a Bug Fixes, Changes, and Improvements thread for each beta, and the suggestion is to add a separate thread something like General Beta Complaints?

So "I really hate how they made the wifi toggle smaller" would be okay in the first thread since it is specific. But "This last beta is the most unreliable ever" would go in the second thread since it is not specific and not a bug fix, change, or improvement (so off-topic). Is that the essence of the idea?

I think so... and maybe we won't need a separate thread for every beta... since it will be a thread for "howling at the moon", maybe a thread for each major iOS version would suffice (iOS 13 Beta Rants, macOS 14.15 Beta Rants, iOS 14 Beta Rants, macOS 14.16 Beta Rants) and not a separate thread for each individual beta release.

 

[chown33]

This would be a fantastic idea IF the noobs would use it as intended...

I think this is the core problem with such a thread. I also think they won't. I suspect the result would be a lot of moderation moving off-topic ranty posts from one thread to another.

You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've accomplished something.

Moderating the "rant thread" and its non-rant counterparts might be a simpler task.

I'm trying to envision how one would moderate this. So we now have a Bug Fixes, Changes, and Improvements thread for each beta, and the suggestion is to add a separate thread something like General Beta Complaints?

So "I really hate how they made the wifi toggle smaller" would be okay in the first thread since it is specific. But "This last beta is the most unreliable ever" would go in the second thread since it is not specific and not a bug fix, change, or improvement (so off-topic). Is that the essence of the idea?

That seems like the essence of the distinction.

You might want to make a one-click "Move to Rant Thread" moderation button.

 

[gwhizkids]

I'm trying to envision how one would moderate this. So we now have a Bug Fixes, Changes, and Improvements thread for each beta, and the suggestion is to add a separate thread something like General Beta Complaints?

So "I really hate how they made the wifi toggle smaller" would be okay in the first thread since it is specific. But "This last beta is the most unreliable ever" would go in the second thread since it is not specific and not a bug fix, change, or improvement (so off-topic). Is that the essence of the idea?

I think so... and maybe we won't need a separate thread for every beta... since it will be a thread for "howling at the moon", maybe a thread for each major iOS version would suffice (iOS 13 Beta Rants, macOS 14.15 Beta Rants, iOS 14 Beta Rants, macOS 14.16 Beta Rants) and not a separate thread for each individual beta release.

Precisely on both counts. I’m hoping the distinction between the 2 types of posts would be clearer than @weaselboy’s example, but it may be a close call at times. And yes, we’d only need one rant thread and one newbie thread per major iOS release, just like we have just one speculation thread.

 

[Shirasaki]

My two cents here.
As for the entire suggestion, for people who already know what to do, such setup is not necessary. For people who either don’t know or don’t care what to do, such setup is necessary but might be way harder than initially thought. My idea would be to add a forum called “rant”, inside is iOS, macOS, Mac, iPhone, iPad. By doing that, mods can add limits to those forums (such as no quote reply or reply visible to only mod team), and moderate those forums accordingly.

As for this rant situation, I am inclined to agree. Right now even with dedicated thread, people will just shoot his/her own thread to rant anyway, only to be merged to main thread after mod found the thread or received reports. It would be extremely difficult to set limits to prevent such posts from the first place, and macrumors forum should not be a forum where only old members can chat freely. For this, maybe, if applicable, site can borrow the idea of profanity filter and automatically categorise threads with several keywords, removing a bit of moderation tasks.