Forums.Microsoft.Com and NNTP Support
I like NNTP alot and use it frequently. It is very fast and responsive! I like the offline feature as well.I think, I also get the point of this new way of doing "conversation": Forums.Microsoft.Com and I would like to see the possiblity of accessing the "Messages" with the NNTP protocol.
One way to integrate the features of Forums.Microsoft.Com (like notification, rating, etc), would be, to have a link at the bottom of the message pointing to the online version of the message, where one can use the functionality...
Hi Harry - I know you asked specifically about NNTP only, but I'd like to address a wider question first: how can you access Forums from a high-performance, offline client? Later in this post I'll circle back to NNTP specifically.
We know that heavy forums users or users on slow connections would really appreciate being able to read and post offline using a high-performance client. For reading Forums posts offline, we support RSS today: go to any Forum and click the "XML" button at the bottom-right of the page. If you're not familiar with RSS, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator for a comprehensive list of RSS readers, many of them free. RSS support for reading forums is likely to get even better in future releases.
Although we have RSS for reading, we don't support offline posting of new questions yet. This is high on our list to consider for the next version. One offline-client idea we've been thinking about: building a free Outlook plugin which enables reading *and* posting to Forums directly from Outlook-- so you can have the rich message-handling features of Outlook like inbox rules and coloring combined with UI built specifically for Forums users for posting, replying, etc. Would this be something you think Forums users would be interested in?
BTW, our long-term goal is to optimize the new-question-posting UI, so that once a question is asked, it never needs to get asked again but instead can be easily found by anyone needing that answer. This will reduce load on members who answer questions (meaning if you do have a unique question it will get answered faster). Plus more users get their answers immediately by finding already-asked-and-answered threads. Finally, fewer duplicate questions makes it easier to turn Forums into a "Community FAQ": a set of questions and authoritative answers without lots of noise and repetition. Anyway, this entire strategy depends on great features to help users more easily search the archive of existing questions before posting new ones. We've got lots of ideas in this area-- you'll see some in the upcoming Visual Studio 2005 Beta2 and others in future Forums web releases.
Exposing Forums via NNTP is an interesting question. NNTP is ubiquitous with literally hundreds of millions of clients worldwide. But NNTP also has significant drawbacks, including:
- Authentication. Unfortunately, changing our existing back-end NNTP systems to support per-user authentication over SSL is a very expensive engineering work item for us, as is spinning up separate NNTP servers other than the beefy ones which support our public newsgroups. It can be done, but at the expense of a lot of other cool forums features we could build with the same resources. Of course we could turn off authentication and allow anyone to post, but users asked us for authentication to reduce spam and eliminate spoofing-- and we don't want to give up those benefits.
- No way to enhance posting UI to minimize duplicates. As I mentioned above, we really want to lower the number of duplicate questions by making the posting UI better and more optimized. But for NNTP clients, posting a new question is fire-and-forget. So we'd never be able to trim the flow of duplicate questions coming in from NNTP clients. So even if only a small percentage of NNTP send already-asked questions, multiply that by millions of expected users in a few years and and we'd have a big problem.
- Noisy threads due to quoting. NNTP readers often default to quoting the entire previous post in a reply—I realize this is bad netiquette but not everyone knows the rules. :-( Especially for long threads, this would make forums' "clean" post-reading UI not clean anymore. Easier-to-read threads was another big customer request in forums and we don't want to lose that.
So for these reasons, we're hesitant to offer full NNTP support because we think it will cause a suboptimal experience for all Forums users. That said, some limited NNTP support may be possible—but we need to trade that work off against other cool forums features we could add.
Questions for you:
- If we offered read-only NNTP (like today's RSS feed) but you had to connect to Forums to post questions, would that be OK?
- If we offered NNTP for reading and replying to existing threads, but you had to connect to the Forums website to post new questions, would that be better or worse than read-only NNTP? And if we offered this, how should we best address the problem described above where NNTP clients quoting reply text makes forums threads much harder to read? BTW, we're piloting a read-and-reply-only NNTP system today with MVPs (if you don't recognize the term, MVPs are a set of voulunteers nominated by their peers as the most helpful community contributions). Unfortunately our pilot implementation is not suitable for general use due to some serious functionality and scalability limitations. You'll may see some posts labelled "NNTP user"-- they're from MVP's using the pilot.
- As we prioritize our engineering schedule, we can spend time on better RSS support, a great Outlook plugin for reading and posting into Forums, and/or building NNTP support. What percentage of our work on offline clients would you like to see us spend on RSS vs. Outlook vs. NNTP?
Thanks for your feedback!Justin Grant
MSDN
Hi Justin
Thankx for the reply and the comments.
I do appreciate the RSS support a lot (I was not aware of it, since it is somehow a little bit hidden).
I am using NewsGator with Outlook 2003 and I like it so fare. There are defenitly some improvements to make and this answers the questions if I'd like to see a plug-in for Outlook and MSForums. YES - I would very much like that!
Since I am now aware of the RSS support, the NNTP is not a big requirement for me. I'd rather see this Outlook-Plug-In.
To answer your questions:
- Read-Only NNTP: that would be just fine. If there would be a link on the message within the NNTP reader, that would even make it easy.
- No support for new questions with NNTP would be fine.
quoting issue: delete the quote if possible (will be hard I guess)
(I'd like to be a MVP ...;-)
- Engeneering Schedule: 20% RSS, 70% Outlook, 0% NNTP - 10% Have a party ;-) or go an with Outlook
Looking forward, Cheers Harry
Please offer offline read & write.
Just checked RSS Bandit and RssReader: both do only show the initial post but not the entire thread. Is this a limitation of the forums RSS implementation so far?
Bye,
SvenC
Yes, this is currently a limitation. We are thinking about how we could improve the RSS feeds though so I welcome any suggestions. I had one question about this suggestion...
Would you prefer that the replies come through RSSBantit as comments to the post or would you prefer the google groups way of thinking where replies just come through as new entries with the "RE: My message"?
I prefer new entries and all entries belonging to one conversation should be in a hierarchical group - actually just like conversations in NNTP.
I find this easier to navigate as each response is clearly separated from the others.
Is that possible with RSS?
Bye
SvenC
Read-only NNTP is better than no NNTP - a lot, especially for me. An offline client allows you to "browse" the wealth of information in forums a lot easier than any current http solution I've seen - oh and that I can download it when connected and read at my leisure on the laptop
As for bells & whistles, the most important thing is the ability to search information, and most nntp clients are naturally very good at that.
/Micke, Sweden.
 justingrant wrote: |
We know that heavy forums users or users on slow connections would really appreciate being able to read and post offline using a high-performance client.
For reading Forums posts offline, we support RSS today: go to any Forum and click the "XML" button at the bottom-right of the page.
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It's great that you have the RSS feed, but I think that in general, a unified API for retrieving/posting/stat gathering (because that is one of the primary reasons this was done, wasn't it?) is important for this to succeed.
While I think that RSS is a decent first step, I would be willing to wait in lieu of a full, unified API to access these forums.
| justingrant wrote: |
One offline-client idea we've been thinking about: building a free Outlook plugin which enables reading *and* posting to Forums directly from Outlook-- so you can have the rich message-handling features of Outlook like inbox rules and coloring combined with UI built specifically for Forums users for posting, replying, etc. Would this be something you think Forums users would be interested in?
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This would be a great idea, but I think that if this was the only offline support that you offered, it would not suit everyone's needs. For something as large as a forum (think of the number of messages in the NNTP groups now), managing that in Outlook could be tedious for some users. This is why an API is important (it could be web-services based, or not, doesn't matter, just let me access it programatically through a well-defined protocol). Other people might want an independent client to access this information, instead of being limited to a single entry point.
| justingrant wrote: |
Questions for you:If we offered read-only NNTP (like today's RSS feed) but you had to connect to Forums to post questions, would that be OK?
If we offered NNTP for reading and replying to existing threads, but you had to connect to the Forums website to post new questions, would that be better or worse than read-only NNTP?
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For now, yes, but as a long-term solution, no, absolutely not. It has a piecemeal/stopgap feeling to it, which would limit the adoption rate.
| justingrant wrote: |
BTW, we're piloting a read-and-reply-only NNTP system today with MVPs (if you don't recognize the term, MVPs are a set of voulunteers nominated by their peers as the most helpful community contributions).
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How does one get access to this? I am an MVP, and I haven't seen anything regarding this.
I have to say I do like what is being done here, and there is a lot of potential here.
It is a horrible decision to go from NNTP support, which is easy to use for millions of people, to these inline forums which require bookmarking pages and accessing the Internet through browsers. Do you not have any conception of how much more difficult you have made it for people to communicate with others about Microsoft products. Of all companies I would have assumed that you would be the last to give in to this nonsense. I am sorely disappointed in this interface and will use it as sparely as possible.
Thanks for your feedback. I'm actually planning on responding to the angry mail you sent me on my blog tonight. I'm not really sure how this release makes it more difficult for people to communicate. There were public newsgroups yesterday, there are public newsgroups today, and there will be public newsgroups tomorrow.
This simply creates an alternative communication mechanism for customers who have been increasingly seeking forums on 3rd party sites over the last few years. Opening the door for fans of web forums to seek official Microsoft forums only expands the potential customer reach of communications. But, if everyone feels as you do this should be a pretty quick experiment.
Hi Josh,
is there any estimated time line when those offline feature might be added/enhanced?
Thanks,
SvenC
>>..."these inline forums which require bookmarking pages and accessing the Internet through browsers."...Ohmigosh.. accessing the Internet through browsers. Unnnggggggg so much pain, so much pain... OH PLEEZE duude..
| EricTN wrote: |
| >>..."these inline forums which require bookmarking pages and accessing the Internet through browsers."...Ohmigosh.. accessing the Internet through browsers. Unnnggggggg so much pain, so much pain... OH PLEEZE duude.. |
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EricTN,
Sarcasm aside, there are a number of pain points that I can say that I have in accessing these forums, and a good number of those pain points come from the fact that they can only be accessed through a browser. While yes, it is not unheard of to access information on the internet through a browser, thinking that all applications on the internet have to provide access through a browser is short sighted, especailly with the emergence of smart clients, as well as offerings in the past, such as email and newsgroups (which are internet based).
- Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]
- mvp@spam.guard.caspershouse.com
I have to say these forums are rediculously time consuming to try to read instead of using NNTP. The RSS, since it only shows the initial port, is useless - That only tells me someone had a question, it doesn't tell me if it was answered or not and really just lets me know there's activity on the forum - nothing else.
RSS also can't really deal with how the replies relate and isn't an appropriate technology. It's yet another example of using a technology that is great at MANY things and trying to make it do things it's not designed for, nor as good as other technologies that already exist for that other purpose (i.e. nntp).
NNTP has a simple mechanism for tracking forums, yes, it's older than many of the users of the forum, but it also works great for things those of us that spend a lot of time in newsgroups need.
This said, it has shortcomings as you said. It gets full of junk, spam sometimes, duplicate questions, etc. So making it read only wouldn't be tooo bad, but that's not great by any means.
Until you have the system you described of dealing with duplicate posts, etc. then you are making it difficult for those of us that could answer questions in this forum to be productive.
Personally I have a fairly complex solution to fetch nntp, mark the ones I'm interested in reading / replying to, and then dealing with them when I have a little more time. But these forums, due to not being available via NNTP or RSS is one of the few decent Microsoft ones that I can't participate in due to how it's managed via the web only.
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