So I'll ask, where is there an NNTP feed for this? And where are the postBacks getting feed out? If the answer is "there isn't any," then you've just alienated a lot of the community.
Thanks for letting me grumble. GRUMBLE.
Moving your question to the Suggestions Forums since that's the best place to discuss suggestions for the Community Forums. The Forums are managed by the Community Team from MS. So I hope they would be in a better position to provide answers to your suggestions.
Regards,
Saurabh Nandu
www.MasterCSharp.com
I deal with grumbling all the time. I'd like to get feedback on proposed RSS changes that we'd like to make. Please take some time to get some feedback here: http://blogs.msdn.com/jledgard/archive/2005/07/22/442130.aspx
Regarding NNTP support. Check out these threads: http://blogs.msdn.com/jledgard/archive/2005/04/17/409057.aspx
and
http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=690
You can also feel free to grumble directly to me at jledgard@microsoft.com
Thanks,
josh
I believe the question was "Where is NNTP". Can't you Microsoft people give a straight answer for a change. Let me rephrase the question : Do you (not will you, not would you) support NTTP for public MSDN forums forums.microsoft.com (hint yes| no)? If answer to the previous question is yes what is the address of the news server I can input into Outlook Express (Microsoft software for emails and news, if you conveniently forgot)?
P.S. We all excited that you are pushing the limit, reaching new highs and innovate at the Microsoft, but can't you leave technologies that prove to be working alone? Can't you work on your XML nirvana without destroying everything else in the process?
It's not a yes or no answer. There are NNTP feeds that are exposed for MVPs. So far only 2-3 MVPs have ever taken us up on the offer. If you are an MVP the announcement has been made several times in the private NNTP groups. If you can't find it and you are an MVP send me mail.
There are not NNTP feeds exposed to the general public for forums.microsoft.com.
Not sure about how we are destroying existing technologies. Both the existing public NNTP groups and these forums seem to function independently just fine. It may actually destroy NNTP if we offered a read/write NNTP feed for these forums because of the issue of moderation. Both for what happens to moderated posts & how NNTP users would need to be validated to maintain some semblance of identity in the community.
"...There are not NNTP feeds exposed to the general public for forums.microsoft.com. ..." - thank you , I'll mark you answer as helpful.
As for my bitching here is the perfect example. Some years back you could go to msdn WEB side type "Developer newsgroups” it would point you to very simple web page were you would get a list of NTTP news groups or a server that that again via NTTP would return you a list of groups. In fact I remember it had wonderful links that triggered configured Outlook express just by clicking(old HTML technology, not fancy enough for today world I guess).
Let’s do simple experiment
1. go to msdn.microsoft.com
2. type search criteria "Developer newsgroups”(Note that there is no advanced find any longer – probably could not use XML on it or something)
3. After searching through bunch(at least 250) of irrelevant links, if you are patient enough and do not quit out of annoyance you will find http://msdn.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx. Bingo!!!! That is probably it, I am about to get list of news group, right? No what you see is “Getting started with the Web-based Newsreader.”, like that is important for Microsoft user who gets Outlook express for free. No listing of the news groups whatsoever.
4. Let’s continue. There is another search button – lets try it. Let’s say we are looking for c++, so that what we enter as search criteria. Some time later (this later is very slow by the way) what do we see? A lot of posts related to c++. So we should be able to deduce the news group from it.
5. Click on the first post that looks c++ -ish. Repeat the step until you find something that looks familiar, try it . After repeatedly trying to do it I personally failed.
6. OK try to find another way (I sure do miss the old inefficient MSDN WEB side). Eureka all I have to do is to search “subscribe to newsgroup”. Nope failed too.
7. Hmmm … Wait a second there is drop down of the news groups – it is got to be there!!!! Nope no c++.
8. Finally somebody actually posted the answer on WEB forum(irony) - msnews.microsoft.com
So what am I bitching about? “Parallel support” – do not think so. I do not see parallel support – I see MS pushing as to use new technology , and taking the tools that actually useful away . Instead of actually getting information from MSDN I had to come here and ask stupid questions and get replies like yours. And by the way you WEB side hanged twice while I was trying to post this answer.
It may have worked well for you, but yes, the customer requests are changing. Web based developer forums have been one of the #1 developer requests worldwide for the last three years. Within one year of this site launching (6 months without any promotion on MSDN) it's already seeing double the volume of the older NNTP groups and a 50% better reply rate than the developer newsgroups. The volume and usage of developer NNTP has actually been going down 8-10% a year for the last 5 years... all that when MSDN did promote the NNTP groups. What should we do?
One answer is to start merging the data sources. That was the root of the NNTp sync experiment. The result was that only 3 people ever connected to the NNTP feed from these forums. Granted, the audience was only 1,000 developer MVPs, but it wasn't a good ratio. But, you'll be pleased to know we are going to keep the access and sync going and probably broaden the access to top users in one of the forum upgrades in the next year. Users will continue to vote with their feet.
Typical Microsoft argument volume == demand right? But the fact that Microsoft made it incredibly difficult to use NNTP has nothing to do with it. I am willing to bet that if page http://msdn.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx. would start with simple Microsoft link newsgroup (“ <a href="news://msnews.microsoft.com">newsgroup</a>
Actually we've done both in the past. Adding the web pages and instructions like we did actually had a temporary increase in adoption of the NNTP solution. But the increase didn't last long. The volume trends started decreasing in public NNTP groups LONG before we had these forums or stopped linking directly to NNTP groups on MSDN and the developer centers. The linkage from MSDN has never had much impact on usage. What has a MUCH higher impact on usage of online communities is search result ranking in Google that leads to new posters.
I'm not sure what your goal is with this conversation. If it's an offline experience you want then we are working on a new platform and the ability to use existing clients in the forums within the next few months. If it's to migrate back to an NNTP only solution.. that's not going to happen. The web forums have been way more successful than NNTP ever has been no matter what data point you want to look at and has been top of the demand list from customers that have been surveyed continually for the last 5 years.
By the way, wouldn't it be possible to have Windows Live ID authentication (NNTP/SSL) on the news server which will probably be linked to forums.microsoft.com?
It would help to prevent spam. And posts only through forums.microsoft.com would appear in the web interface.
aao123 wrote:
thank you for the link
You're welcome.
That page is updated daily (in order to reflect new/removed newsgroups). Feel free to use it.
I really hope forums.microsoft.com will soon have a NNTP access (even if it is read-only, with an added link at the end of each message for us to easily answer).
