Apple this weekend will begin upgrading Apple Discussions, its user forum for online technical support. The company announced that it would a number of new features, including an improved search, improved RSS support, and the ability to better identify threads: users will be able to mark threads as a "question" and then "answered", when appropriate, to help those searching for answers. The new search engine will feature the ability to search for numbers and perform proximity searches, while new subscription options will allow users to receively weekly updates to user's posts (in addition to specific threads and forums).

Apple is also adding a WYSIWG editor to easily add bold and italics to each post and new support for relative time zones. The upgrade will begin at 8 pm PST on November 11th, when the will beccome active and the previous URLs will be redirected to the new site.

Apple, however, noted several caveats as part of the new software:

• User aliases will no longer be changeable. The new system will prompt new users for an alias, but existing aliases will be transferred to the new system. Please make sure that you like yours.
  
  
• User aliases must have a minimum of 2 characters and a maximum of 30 characters. Aliases that do not meet the requirements will not be transferred.
  
  
• Unfortunately, subscriptions will not be transferred. Please make a note of your subscriptions as you will have to reselect them in the new system.
  
  
• Bookmarks will not be available in the new system. We are looking at ways to provide these again in the future, but for now, please use your web browser’s bookmark feature to mark interesting subjects.
  
  
• You won’t be able to upload your own avatars (user icons) after the transition, but we hope to offer this feature in the near future.