[Macpartners] What's the deal with Apple Discussions?

[Kerem B Limon]

Is it just me, or are Apple Discussions frequently down and slow like 
molasses all the time? _Every_ _single_ time I try to access them, they're 
either down, or the searching is disabled, or some other problem. Even 
Hotmail isn't this bad!

Just now, as I was trying to connect, they sent a (mind you, 15-min) notice 
indicating they are down for maintenance. This is the fourth time this 
week. Not to mention unusually frequent downtime in the wee hours (after 
midnight), when a considerable number of techs are still awake and doing 
their best work!!!

This is the *one* useful _Apple_ support resource outside of third parties 
like MacFixIt (their KB has changed its access methods and URLs, and has 
expired content more than I care to bookmark anything useful--and 
Discussions does the same). And yet, it's either not there or 
"un-browsable" half the time. I'm getting tired of their messy URLs and the 
constant 404s. Is this supposed to be an example of how reliable Apple 
servers/technologies are? Isn't all this stuff supposed to be running on 
WebObjects? And I find it ironic that the Apple Store appears to be quite 
the opposite when it comes to reliability!

I cannot remember the last time Microsoft KB was down. Or the time I 
couldn't get to their newsgroups. What's so difficult for a company that 
has a much smaller market share and thus fewer customers?

Frustratedly yours, :(
Kerem