Why is this "community" system so keen to close threads, often before any response?

BashfulMonkeySpider wrote:

Someone searches for an answer, they see links to this forum in search results. They click, see their very question but no answer. They click a second, same question, also closed. They click a third, same. I get that not all questions will get answers... but this behavior hardly encourages use.

This is entirely the decision of our hosts.

One common pattern around here are folks using search engines to get to a still-open thread, and re-posting the same question into the thread, while ignoring myriad previous (correct) answers posted into the same thread. There are other common patterns involving old threads too, including the previously-mentioned spam and advertisements that have been problematic. AI slop, too. And info and answers in older threads commonly ages out, an inevitably becoming more familiar to the users of widely-hyped AI tools. Perpetually unlocked old threads doesn’t help with any of that.

For this case, you can also use search engine grammar to remove closed threads from search results. DuckDuckGo advanced grammar offers the negation operator, as do other search engines. Something akin to this search query:

site:discussions.apple.com -"This thread has been closed"

BashfulMonkeySpider wrote:

All good points, I'm sure you are right, and I'm in favor of closing threads, particularly those that have been answered. That still doesn't make this problem go away.

Pay some folks to answer the questions, and the problem goes away.

We have a raft of unanswered questions littering search results, training users to ignore this site. If the system is going to neuter a question after three months, and the question still has no answers, it may as well hide it from search engines as well. Commit. It's obviously trash to the system at that point, even if it's a relevant question, even if there is a perfectly good answer. Communication is no longer possible and the site offers no useful info, beyond the fact that someone else experienced the issue.

Welcome to the internet.

Feel free to answer some of the previously-unanswered questions here, too.

Or post a reply with the answer to a common question.

With some of the local internet points accrued, Apple permits people to post editable user tips here.

Or create your own website or blog, and post your tips and suggestions there.

Lots of options.

And again, this particular part of the Apple website is approximately entirely user-generated content.

My computers are generally up to date, so the fact that I'm running into threads that are still relevant to me, and unanswered, means your definition of old here is faulty. What's more, my clients are often NOT up to date with their hardware and software.

Ah, so you’re getting paid. There are other folks that answer these sorts of questions should you be stumped and your research efforts thwarted, as an alternative to a free service.

Beyond problems that persist through updates, which I run into all the time, do we abandon folks using older systems? I don't think we do, certainly not because of AI.

The costs and effort and skills involved with running older versions inevitably increase. Both for any provider that might seek to offer support those, and for the users of such older and unsupported configurations. We’ve been on a treadmill of upgrades for decades, and that with no signs of slowing.

Using search engine grammar is great advice – most users won't know how to do this, and who's going to remember the exact wording the site uses anyway?

Yeah, I don’t bother remembering the specific syntax either. But when I meet lots of unwanted replies in a search engine query, I adjust the query or add whatever the local parlance uses. Or a date range. Or a different search engines. Or whatever other adjustments might be appropriate for the particular query.

Or post the question anew, with enough details and context to make answering the question easier.

Which search engine are you using for your research? Google? Google has been having increasing difficulties and for whatever reason, and that’s before discussions of finding malware in results, and ad-based revenue streams. AI-generated website slop isn’t helping things, either.

Anyway, I'm hardly aware of the many issues in managing a forum of this size, so I can only speculate what the optimal solution is, but I think I'm right that this is a problem.

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Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/979/

BashfulMonkeySpider wrote:

Someone searches for an answer, they see links to this forum in search results. They click, see their very question but no answer. They click a second, same question, also closed. They click a third, same. I get that not all questions will get answers... but this behavior hardly encourages use.

What is missing is that it is likely that the OS has also changed or if the behavior was due to an app, it may have also changed. With the fast moving technology, many times a previous question will no longer be relevant. That is also true for your post, where the solution to update to Mac OS 15.4.1 is not longer a viable option as they should be using 15.5 and you cannot update to 15.4.1. A user would be correctly directed to post a new question with the current information.

I would also suggest on your previous post that the issue may have been resolved with a Logi+ update used by your mouse. As noted on their support page, the software was updated on 3/4/25, 4/1/25, 4/21/25, 5/20/25, and the most recent being 6/9/25. All of which may have been a contributing factor to resolving your problem and it is possible that the OS 15.4.1 update coincided with one of the Logi+ updates.

Apple is not here. Asking Apple "why" questions will not be seen by Apple.

This is a user-to-user technical help community. It is a violation of the TOU to discuss community moderation here.

Apple Support Communities Use Agreement - Apple Community

Threads will be closed after, I think it's, 3 months of inactivity. Whether they have answers or not.

If you have an answer, you can link to the thread for it and start a new thread.

If you have the same question, then start a new post for it and explain your issue, and someone may come to answer it.

Also, we cannot discuss the reasoning for moderation or forum management decisions. That is up to the moderators entirely.

Problems only have a limited lifespan. Questions about those problems are no different. Plus, those kinds of uninteresting, dormant threads are opportunities for scammers and spammers.

If your questions aren't attracting interest, try re-phrasing them or providing more detailed information.

The Terms of Use are irrelevant there. This is a good policy. The only criticism that anyone has is that Apple doesn't close threads aggressively enough.

BashfulMonkeySpider wrote:

Someone searches for an answer, they see links to this forum in search results. They click, see their very question but no answer. They click a second, same question, also closed. They click a third, same.

So what's the alternative? Someone chimes in on a two year old thread about a problem that is actually totally different, on a totally different operating system? You're describing the worst-case scenario here in the forums. If that's the practice that the aggressive thread-closing is preventing, then it's a huge benefit.