The future of security forums?

In my last rant, I talked about how we were possibly going about infection removal all wrong - in short, too many infections, too few dedicated removal experts, not enough hours in the day coupled with high burn-out rates.

Well, that's not to say security forums don't have value - they rock - but remember, we're talking about the HJT forums specifically. I wonder how many people reading this immediately think of infection removal when the words "security forum" are mentioned. And yet there's so much more to them...

For me, the future of security forums lies in scaling back the HJT sections, and turning at least some of those security experts into writers - how many of you HJT guys test the infections you try to remove? Hands up...ah, just as I thought. Pretty much all of you. Why not take some screenies? Why not write down some names? Why not throw it all together and make a song and dance about it?

It may well be the worst, most stinkiest weblog on the face of the Earth. Or it may well (and more likely be) a good, interesting read.

Wait...what if we started exploiting a weblog tool such as categories, and placed a one-to-one narrative description of removal into a weblog format, rather than a bunch of "hidden away" fixes that no-one bar the security expert sees?

All of a sudden, the fixer isn't having to cut and paste the same canned fix over and over and over again - it's there, once and once only, for all to see, get help with and - oh look! The people who want help, can ask for it in the comments section, they can gloss over the previous questions and see if any of the answers "fit" with their particular issue, and after that, any "overspill" whose problem is still too difficult to resolve can then hit the security forums for help as a last resort.

Think this is too crazy an idea? I don't - an example....

Nick is my pal. He can mostly be found over at Spywarewarrior, though he slams across the length and breadth of security forums across the Interweb. He taught me lots of things. He's a clever guy. And Nick recently started up a weblog - nothing to do with my "theory" above, I hasten to add - he set it up for, well, whatever reasons he had when he set the thing up. So there you go.

Now, check this page out - a guide to canning the nasty Spyaxe infection. Look how many comments he has! His hitrate for that page is kerayzee - and bound to get bigger. And look how many people in the comments manged to get rid of the infection...with none of the back and forth messing around, no need for Nick to repeatedly cut and paste.....one hit, boom, it's out of there, maybe a little rework for some of the more stubborn hits and we're home free.

A nice example.

Could this be applied on a much wider scale?

Creating a "first line of defence" comprised of blog entries by various "blog-watchers" for the forums?

Possibly, possibly not.

It'd be fun to find out, though....