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From: kevinp on 9 May 2010 07:02
Why don't we just start our own groups then?




On Tue, 04 May 2010 12:14:41 -0700 (UTC), nntp(a)microsoft.com wrote:

>Date 5/4/2010
>Starting in early summer 2010, Microsoft will begin progressively closing down the Microsoft public newsgroups to enrich conversations in the rapidly-growing forum platform. This decision is in response to worldwide market trends and evolving customer needs.
>
>Microsoft continues to invest in forums to reduce customer effort, consolidate community venues and make it easier for active contributors to retain their influence. Forums provide a healthy community environment with less spam and make answers easier to find by customers and search engines. Additionally, forums offer a better user and off-topic management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by facilitating discussions in a clean space.
>
>We understand that some newsgroups are still active, and important to the community. In the coming days and weeks, we will be rolling out tools and resources to minimize disruption to the community discussions.
>
>We are working diligently on providing additional resources and information in local languages later this week. In the meantime, please refer to the official Microsoft Newsgroup website http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx concerning this issue. The Microsoft Newsgroup website will be made available in additional languages in the next few days.
From: Nathan Sokalski on 12 May 2010 23:05
There are several things that I think are strong disadvantages of moving to
the forums:

1. The fact that they are web/html increases the size of downloads (extra
tags, formatting, and images along with the messages)
2. Less simplicity, newsreaders are much more basic and allow you to watch
messages so that you know when someone has responded
3. I have had much more trouble with the NNTP Bridge than getting stuff from
the NNTP servers that still exist
4. Since the NNTP Bridge requires a Windows Live Passport (even though I
have one and they are free, I am willing to bet that not everyone will like
this idea), I have a feeling some people will not be willing to use the
forums
5. Since the forums are country and language specific and are not directly
mapped to newsgroups, I think that some of the users that currently share
stuff will be split, therefore resulting in less interaction
6. I have found it hard to figure out which forums to use for the stuff I
used the newsgroups for. Even though Microsoft said they would tell us which
one we should move to, they have only given us categories, which I have not
found very helpful

Can Microsoft at least make NNTP servers for some forums out of the current
ones? Or build a better NNTP Bridge into the newsreaders?
--
Nathan Sokalski
njsokalski(a)hotmail.com
http://www.nathansokalski.com/

<nntp(a)microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:#bz65i$6KHA.2160(a)TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Date 5/4/2010
> Starting in early summer 2010, Microsoft will begin progressively closing
> down the Microsoft public newsgroups to enrich conversations in the
> rapidly-growing forum platform. This decision is in response to worldwide
> market trends and evolving customer needs.
>
> Microsoft continues to invest in forums to reduce customer effort,
> consolidate community venues and make it easier for active contributors to
> retain their influence. Forums provide a healthy community environment
> with less spam and make answers easier to find by customers and search
> engines. Additionally, forums offer a better user and off-topic
> management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by
> facilitating discussions in a clean space.
>
> We understand that some newsgroups are still active, and important to the
> community. In the coming days and weeks, we will be rolling out tools and
> resources to minimize disruption to the community discussions.
>
> We are working diligently on providing additional resources and
> information in local languages later this week. In the meantime, please
> refer to the official Microsoft Newsgroup website
> http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx concerning
> this issue. The Microsoft Newsgroup website will be made available in
> additional languages in the next few days.
>
From: Phill W. on 13 May 2010 08:17
On 13/05/2010 04:05, Nathan Sokalski wrote:
> There are several things that I think are strong disadvantages of moving
> to the forums:

> 1. The fact that they are web/html increases the size of downloads
> (extra tags, formatting, and images along with the messages)
And, of course, /everyone/ these days has multiple, massive, wide-screen
monitors on which to view all this web-y nonsense *and* a permanent,
100% reliable, Gigabit connection to the Wibbly-Wobbly-Web. 8-}

> 2. Less simplicity, newsreaders are much more basic and allow you to
> watch messages so that you know when someone has responded
I can't understand how anyone can find /anything/ in the Forum format.
It makes browsing a complete nonsense.

But, of course, Our Friends in Redmond couldn't care less care about
that because, from now on, it will be their Moderators and contributors
who will be answering all the questions.

Goody! Let them deal with the flurry of newbie questions at the start
of each (and every) semester. Things like:

"How do I get the Command Line Arguments ... ?"
"Where is my program running?"
"How can I do 'something' in a completely different [Office] product?"

Remember them? Ah; Those were the days.

> 3. I have had much more trouble with the NNTP Bridge than getting stuff
> from the NNTP servers that still exist
The NNTP Bridge is a ridiculous kludge that, IMHO, will push people to
finally use the Forum interface if only in pure frustration and/or
resignation. I don't see it lasting more than a version or two (Oh;
just like everything else O.F.I.R. have released in the last decade!).

> 4. Since the NNTP Bridge requires a Windows Live Passport (even though I
> have one and they are free, I am willing to bet that not everyone will
> like this idea), I have a feeling some people will not be willing to use
> the forums
Agreed. I've got one - somewhere. Used it once, back when VS'2005 was
released and haven't touched it since.

> 5. Since the forums are country and language specific and are not
> directly mapped to newsgroups, I think that some of the users that
> currently share stuff will be split, therefore resulting in less
> interaction
Agreed.
And AltaVista's Babel fish service will see less traffic as well,
because we won't be translating all those fun posts in French or
Italian. (No offence intended to any French or Italian readers).

> 6. I have found it hard to figure out which forums to use for the stuff
> I used the newsgroups for. Even though Microsoft said they would tell us
> which one we should move to, they have only given us categories, which I
> have not found very helpful
What's a "Category"?

Allow me to add a another significant reason for not moving - the
complete absence of anything to do with VB "Proper", i.e. VB versions
1.0 through 6.6. Every Forum I've looked at [albeit /very/ briefly;
can't stand the things] has explicitly stated "Not for VB6 questions" or
something very similar.

Actually, I've just found this one:

Title: "For Visual Basic 6 questions, please read..."
Replies: 0 Views: *50006*
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vbgeneral/thread/6a0719fe-14af-47f7-9f51-a8ea2b9c8d6b

But all it is is a list of /other/ places you can go - one of which is
an appalling, web-ified version of the very newsgroups they're currently
killing off!

So, with Usenet support pulled and the Forums (a) ignoring and (b)
actively removing any and all content pertaining to VB "Proper", what
chance to we stand?
See you all at comp.lang.basic.visual.misc. :-)

> Can Microsoft at least make NNTP servers for some forums out of the
> current ones? Or build a better NNTP Bridge into the newsreaders?
Technically? Yes. Of course they could.
Will they? Not a snowball's chance in Hell.

They don't like Usenet. Period. They don't own it, they can't control
it, ergo: they want to get rid of it. Until they do, peer-to-peer
support for VB "Proper" will continue "Out There". And that's no way to
kill off a product.

Regards,
Phill W.
From: Dennis on 13 May 2010 08:26
On Thu, 13 May 2010 13:17:12 +0100, "Phill W."
<p-.-a-.-w-a-r-d-@-o-p-e-n-.-a-c-.-u-k> wrote:

>Goody! Let them deal with the flurry of newbie questions at the start
>of each (and every) semester. Things like:
>
>"How do I get the Command Line Arguments ... ?"
>"Where is my program running?"
>"How can I do 'something' in a completely different [Office] product?"
>
>Remember them? Ah; Those were the days.

I installed the NNTP bridge and started downloading from
Msdn.en-US.vbgeneral. A lot more traffic, but as you suggest, a lot of
what seems like homework problems. I wish folks would teach these people
how to find the answers themselves instead of writing the code for them.

--

Dennis
From: Cor Ligthert[MVP] on 14 May 2010 02:17
>
> I installed the NNTP bridge and started downloading from
> Msdn.en-US.vbgeneral. A lot more traffic, but as you suggest, a lot of
> what seems like homework problems. I wish folks would teach these people
> how to find the answers themselves instead of writing the code for them.
>
The homework answers in the VB forums are less than a year ago and are not
always direct answered with code anymore.

However, I remember me that I've seen in this newsgroup in the begin also a
lot of homework questions, which got an answered by many with code.

The crowd visiting the newsgroups becomes older. Many newbie's don't even
know anymore what newsgroups are.

Not that I don't regret it that the Microsoft newsgroups are closed.
However, that there are more beginner questions in the forums is in my
because of the reason above.

What is wrong by the way for some code answers, sometimes I also did not
know that for something, which I did very difficult, there is a namespace or
class and then I'm glad to see that in code instead of a long message, which
could have been done with one row of code.

Cor


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