Google Product Forums are almost useless

[Deleted User]

I don't know where else to post problems with Google products, like Android, Gmail, Drive, etc, because the "Product Forums" are overrun by these know-nothing "Community Specialists" who barely read or understand the posts, reply with copy-paste boilerplate generic replies that don't fix any problems, and don't seem to be able or willing to test any of the problems, no matter how particular or reproducible, any members are having.

Most often I'm just wasting my time there, and it seems hardly any normal person replies unless it's a very common highly noticeable problem (like affecting millions of people at a time). It just seems these "Community Specialists" are low-paid teenage foreigners like Microsoft Answers uses, with just a bunch of scripts to refer to.

Some of the problems I've encountered and gotten no help or understanding with are: saving Android Google Maps locations to contacts easily, downloading Drive files from secondary Gmail accounts in the same Windows Chrome browser, and being unable to save a preview (smaller) image from an attached file from Gmail (as opposed to the full-size image).

I'm just not finding an alternative to Google Product Forums when it comes to buggy or restrictive Google apps that I'm trying to find fixes or workarounds for, and I'm not understanding why their "Specialists" seem to cause more problems than they solve.

 

[codesplice]

Would it be at all comforting to know that many of the Top Contributor "experts" feel the same way about most of the Community Specialists? There are a few really good ones (at least in the product forums I hang out in) but most of them could be replaced by bots with no discernible loss. (Maybe that's the issue - they've already been replaced by bots?) It's frustrating to have to work around the Specialists on both sides.

All I can recommend is to keep posting; hopefully you'll be able to attract the attention of a TC who might be able to help out. I might be able to lend a hand if you have any problems in the Nexus, Pixel, Android Wear, or Pixelbook forums but I'm afraid that's about as far as my reach goes.

 

[svim]

If you cannot find viable answers to your questions online searches and/or forums, it might be time to just hire a contractor for some one-to-one help:
http://www.pfind.com/alternatives/geek-squad
Also, a number of local libraries and community centers now have smartphone-focused seminars and help-sessions.

 

[lunatic59]

Unfortunately, I think that's the paradigm now. It's not just limited to Google, either. Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Dell, HP, etc. who have setup support forums respond to user questions or problems with scripted platitudes. Most of the useful information I find is in user peer forums (like this one ) where someone else has either encountered a similar situation or they are at least willing to listen.

Some of the problems I've encountered and gotten no help or understanding with are: saving Android Google Maps locations to contacts easily, downloading Drive files from secondary Gmail accounts in the same Windows Chrome browser, and being unable to save a preview (smaller) image from an attached file from Gmail (as opposed to the full-size image).

To be fair, what I see here is that you are asking apps to have features that aren't included in the app, or to use features in a manner that they weren't designed for.

 

[Rob]

How about asking your specific questions as separate threads in the appropriate app forum here... On Androidforums.com?

 

[Deleted User]

Would it be at all comforting to know that many of the Top Contributor "experts" feel the same way about most of the Community Specialists? There are a few really good ones (at least in the product forums I hang out in) but most of them could be replaced by bots with no discernible loss. (Maybe that's the issue - they've already been replaced by bots?) It's frustrating to have to work around the Specialists on both sides.

All I can recommend is to keep posting; hopefully you'll be able to attract the attention of a TC who might be able to help out. I might be able to lend a hand if you have any problems in the Nexus, Pixel, Android Wear, or Pixelbook forums but I'm afraid that's about as far as my reach goes.

I've had similar issues with the Top Contributors, but I suppose they've been better than the Community Specialists.

If you cannot find viable answers to your questions online searches and/or forums, it might be time to just hire a contractor for some one-to-one help:
http://www.pfind.com/alternatives/geek-squad
Also, a number of local libraries and community centers now have smartphone-focused seminars and help-sessions.

So I should find someone to edit Google's source code for Gmail, Drive, and Maps?

Unfortunately, I think that's the paradigm now. It's not just limited to Google, either. Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Dell, HP, etc. who have setup support forums respond to user questions or problems with scripted platitudes. Most of the useful information I find is in user peer forums (like this one ) where someone else has either encountered a similar situation or they are at least willing to listen.

To be fair, what I see here is that you are asking apps to have features that aren't included in the app, or to use features in a manner that they weren't designed for.

Actually I've just been asking how to do these things (or at least in the easiest workaround possible), and some of these features did exist in previous versions of the app (like before Google's Maps overhaul of version 6 or 7, I don't remember now), and some issues I'm reporting just look like bugs that may have workarounds, but many of the replies tend not to even consider that possibility, nor do they offer any way to report a bug other than the "Feedback" feature, which has never done anything effective that I've seen.

How about asking your specific questions as separate threads in the appropriate app forum here... On Androidforums.com?

I wasn't asking about separate issues here, I was posting about Google Product Forums' ineptness in the closest alternative I could find based on a Google search... if you know a better place than this or the pretty much useless Google Product Forums to post a conversation or complaint or workaround requests about those forums, please feel free to make suggestions.

 

[lunatic59]

Still, I suppose it's better than Samsung or Apple forums where the policy is to deny the problem until it is fixed and then heroically announce the fix was already rolled out last week for a problem that was being reported for 9 months.

 

[codesplice]

I've had similar issues with the Top Contributors, but I suppose they've been better than the Community Specialists.

TCs are people too - some good, some not so good. The difference is that the specialists are actually getting paid for their useless posting.

TCs just get the satisfaction of helping people. Most (at least on the products I mentioned earlier - can't speak for the other corners of GPF) are genuinely interested in helping resolve issues where they can. It may seem like they give boilerplate responses (Reboot? Clear cache? Safe mode? Factory reset?) but it's generally in the interest of getting a better handle on the issue being reported. It's hard (or even impossible) to make accurate recommendations with incomplete data.

That said, for feature requests there may not be a better outlet than the feedback tools. Google (and many other big companies) don't make it easy to get requests directly to the developers, so in lieu of a public issue tracker (like https://issuetracker.google.com/issues) Send Feedback really is the next best thing.

By the way, if you see a particularly useless Community Specialist post on the product forums, feel free to use the Settings > Help & feedback > Send feedback menu to bring it to the forum team's attention.

 

[svim]

So I should find someone to edit Google's source code for Gmail, Drive, and Maps?

It was simply a suggestion that you might find it less of a hassle to sit down with an actual person to go through things. As for editing source code, Google products are often based on Open Source code but after it integrates its own services are in fact proprietary and the code itself not freely available for consumers to tweak and re-use.