I understand your point ... if we identify a problem where it becomes a mess, we'll certainly consider adding additional forums.
Fair enough. It was just a thought. Several other forum sites have more than one OS page, whether it be pre-OSX or 10.0 to 10.5 or 10.6, whatever...
...which is exactly why there is a Forum Search tool.
That's a thought... Are you saying to Search "OS 10.whatever" to display just those topics?
And you can also only display topics tagged with your particular prefix. So you can filter the forum threads to be only those prefixed by 10.6 or 10.1 or whatever you want to see.
The reality is this:
- Most questions about how to do something in an OS aren't substantially different between OSX versions therefore, much applies to everyone
- The more forums you have, the less any get read. From a usability standpoint, if there's not a clear, overwhelming benefit to separation, fewer forums is always better.
In reverse order:
-In general, I agree. I think the benefit in separating topics is when the traffic creates such a long list of them that I tend to give up on a forum rather than wade through several pages for topics of interest, or ones I think I can offer an answer to.
-There's the rub. When a question is not really OS specific, it's a fallacy to so identify it. But, I suppose many users would not know, or be uncertain about when the distinction is valid. That's probably a reason to leave them all in one pot.
-That's interesting. I was not aware of that ability. My suggestion is a more straight forward solution to a "problem" that the responders so far don't see as a problem. I don't see such an option on the OSX Forum page. Do you mean you'd "tag" a particular prefix by changing something in your User Profile?
Thanks to all who've responded. I might be learning a new trick or two from your thoughtful counterpoints.