Company-specific forums

Posted by caramelpolice on August 6, 2012 07:35 pm 7

There's a problem I've noticed more and more lately on the Verge forums regarding the nature of forums like Microsoft Tribe/Android Army/Apple Core. It feels like these forums have been echo chambers of opinion, where fanboys of each brand hang out and dominate the discussion. If you want to ask for a fair pro/con comparison between a Nexus 7 or iPad, how do you do it? If you post it in Apple Core, everyone will say iPad; post it in Android Army, everyone will say Nexus 7; post it in Tablet Talk and no one will respond because no one visits Tablet Talk. Separating discussion like this also creates bias in readers; the more people stick to one forum, the more their views and knowledge of a subject will be restricted to the views of one side. I realize that fanboyism is obviously an impossible problem to solve, but would it be possible to shut down the company-specific forums and instead redirect traffic to forums with broader subjects?