Anyone who’s ever been forced to resort to Google for help with troubleshooting a computer-problem knows that forums are bad news. The rules of all technical support forums are the same: Ask a simple question, get over a hundred responses that aren’t actually answers no matter how you squint and turn your head.

The reason that this sort of thing happens has to do with hubris and frustration. Many people who frequent tech support community boards like to think of themselves as “experts”. When someone posts a question, they cannot help but shoot their mouths off – whether they know the answer or not.  But they’ve got to say something – they need to keep their post counts up!

As far as frustration is concerned, it’s important to note that we’re not talking about the questioner’s frustration. We’re talking about the frustration of those self-proclaimed experts who only grow more and more irritated as the questioner keeps posting thread after thread about his or her problem because nobody, as yet, has been able to suggest a workable fix.

The result of tech support forum posters who are unable to ever admit that they simply do not know the answer for some problems, is page after page of pointless, Google-clogging back and forth where the posters dance around the actual problem, being aggressively useless, until the questioner gives up, and just formats his or her hard drive.

Not all tech support forums are entirely worthless, however. Sometimes someone actually provides useful information. The problem is that it’s not always easy to identify threads that are going somewhere from threads that will only spiral down into a miasma of arrogant impotence and petty bickering. Thus, as a service to others, we present:

Warning Signs That This Support Thread is Going Nowhere

• If the initial question is clear, concise, and detailed, but there are more than three pages of replies, just walk away.
• If you see the phrase, “Why are you trying to do that?” forget it. You’re in the wrong place.
• If at any point someone posts, “Well, it works for me – something must be wrong with your computer,” resist the temptation to reply, “Well, duh.” Just leave quietly.
• If you spot an endless series of demands for more and more, totally irrelevant information (e.g. What voltage are you getting from your serial port? Can you give me a complete list of every file on your computer? What HAL is Windows using?) for a simple software question (e.g. How do I pick a different screensaver?), run for the hills.
• If anyone suggests paying to upgrade to the newest version of software, before actually linking to a knowledgebase article or bug report or software patch first, back away.
• If the first reply to a question explains how to solve a problem that seems similar, but in fact is completely unrelated, do not read on.
• If you do read on, only to see the questioner respond with, “That’s not my issue,” followed by the reply, “Yes, but did you try it first?” then you should leave.

Honestly, the best thing you can do in any of these situations is skip to the end of the thread. If you see either of the following three things, look elsewhere:

• Everyone seems to be talking about something completely unrelated to the original question.
• Some has posted, “Hello, anybody ever figure this out?”
• “Never mind. I just formatted and reinstalled.”