Where is C9 going?

I have been a member of C9 for some time now. I have liked the direction it has gone. But for the past few months it really hasnt done anything new or excitng. Sure, making the movies downloadable is cool, i just havent seen anything cool and exciting  being offered. A few months ago, you posted something. and got a response, people we're all over C9, now its really slow in terms of people floating around.

i think all the fights in the last weeks and the "let's see what the editor can do" fiasco didnt help

C9 became Altamont (dont do the brown cid/hell's angels)

But this last week (i think) everything seems more back to normal

although we cant even post URLs now - thats a bit of a hassle - hopefully c9 team will put that feature back in and participate more

jamie wrote:

i think all the fights in the last weeks and the "let's see what the editor can do" fiasco didnt help

Remind us Jamie, who was the one who started a topic all about "let's see what the editor can do"

- Yes I agree.. but you can't force Microsoft people to come post.

I still maintain that an internal advertisement campaign would help but other than breaking in I can't do one.. And Microsoft security told me if they find me wondering about the Microsoft site once more they will have me arrested so.. ^Shrug^

hey that editor post was worthy ( waynes world..)

i agree c9 needs promotion - theres like - 40 people who post - 4000 people who read

its like a medical experiment

I think things have slowed down here quite a bit as of late, even though a new video seems to appear every 1-3 days.  I'm sure the recent thread "derailings" haven't helped much, and has probably done more to drive people away for a while.  I don't think it is permanent, however, and my guess is that more people will start posting again soon.  One thing I don't understand is when people do ask direct questions of those in Microsoft (or on the Channel admin staff) it seems to take a while for a response to occur, and then, when it does, of course the person starts asking more questions/tries to carry on a conversation.  Then, it goes back to silence again.  Lots of silence.  <insert cricket sounds>  Then, people start getting bored, start arguing, and then when things spiral out of control, somebody steps in, starting the cycle all over again.  It's weird.  I realize internal staff members are busy and can't always reply, but I can't believe all the lurkers are external people.

OK, I'll post something. I remember when I first found C9. It was a more innocent time. Longhorn was still in one piece. SP2 was going generate a healthy profit. I got giddy seeing Avalon videos. I wouldn't worry about it though. When Longhorn nears release, and the guys & gals in marketing get busy again, we'll see more interesting C9 content.

I want them to interview the Microsoft network admins.. hear them talk about the Microsoft.com servers for instance, not going to happen. But I would kill for such a video

Interesting thread gents. 

Channel 9 does indeed have a future.  In fact we are wrapping up the final touches on a new release that has goals around simplification, streamlining, and general improvments to the site based on your feedback. 

The site is serving its purpose and you won't find me bolting additional features on the top of something that essentially works well today.  I don't believe in feature creep and want to keep it what it was intended to be ... a chance for you to learn more about the people, culture, processes, etc that make Microsoft what it is today.  A chance to see the face of Microsoft and to get an additional level of access to them.

I have my serious concerns about keeping the open nature of the forums alive as the team can't spend too much time playing forum admin, and the value of the site for most people is in the topical videos and discussions around the videos.  Perhaps we did a poor job in making it seem like all Microsoft employees would join in Channel 9 and this has left disappointment. 

The site will continue to march on, be refined, be improved, and continue on its original goals.  That I can promise you. 

Hey Lenn, is there a user-created poll present for me in this next release?
I did think that all Microsoft employees would be joining c9, but I'm not disappointed about it. And anyway I like the ones we've got around here
Please don't put in a similar messenger-style chat room where we see the other person (shudder...).
Am I the only person who doesn't like the videos much? I come back for the chat, not the videos. I don't even look at what the front-page-video is, but I would if you put back the c9 admin created polls.

Thats just my opinion.

lenn wrote:

Perhaps we did a poor job in making it seem like all Microsoft employees would join in Channel 9 and this has left disappointment. 

I didn't expect huge participation from internal employees either...it just would be nice to see it a little more.  All too often it is "post and run" sort of situation.  I'm not going to read too much into that, but instead just keep posting away and see what happens.  Time to graph some participation stats like Raymond Chen did with his spam!

I find it interesting that many threads get so many views and so little posts. I usually visit here off and on for a laugh or some knowledge. I dont think there are enough generic developer type threads to get people involved. The majority of threads are--griping about ms, article already from /., or requesting things about MS.

I do read the url and it does say msdn so I understand if this place just turns into ms I hate you or ms give this to me or ms you killed my gerbil (ARMAGEDDON!).

So where is C9 going IMO no where but I don't know if that is anything but the community can fix.

Also...it would be nice to see another coding contest or two, maybe in the form of a "Whiteboard" question again (this has been mentioned by others).  Perhaps, even open up another forum devoted to small challenges such as these, but post a new challenge weekly.  Just for fun of course.

You talking about prize driven or non-prize driven comps? Because it seems unrealistic to have prize driven ones that often.

If we did have a non-prize one.. I would enter all my answers in VBA to piss all the C++ people off >)

I agree that a "Question of the Week/Month" would be a cool idea. Not necessarily for prizes, but more for fun. Simple problems that can be solved a bunch of ways, like the palindrome question.

I for one have learned a lot from this forum. The videos have been a great insight into Redmond. In thinking about the suggestion for more participation or videos related to server systems I guess a better place would be thru something like the partner site. I hope that some of what is going on here will rub off onto other divisions of Microsoft. Still would be great to get a video or two of the some of the server divisions online. 

At first I thought the videos were a great idea.  They are.  But you are not alone as I don't watch them much anymore either.  Most are pretty pointless to me.  I just watch the few that seem interesting to me.

I don't visit C9 much anymore because too many people use it as a forum to rag on Microsoft (are we up to the 100th anti-IE thread yet?) or flame one another.

Just my $0.02.

Loadsgood wrote:

Hey Lenn, is there a user-created poll present for me in this next release?
I did think that all Microsoft employees would be joining c9, but I'm not disappointed about it. And anyway I like the ones we've got around here
Please don't put in a similar messenger-style chat room where we see the other person (shudder...).
Am I the only person who doesn't like the videos much? I come back for the chat, not the videos. I don't even look at what the front-page-video is, but I would if you put back the c9 admin created polls.

Thats just my opinion.

And I should add a third category: a smaller group seem to be trying to use C9 as a way to get a job at Microsoft.  Sheesh!

JMO

phunky_avocado wrote:

At first I thought the videos were a great idea.  They are.  But you are not alone as I don't watch them much anymore either.  Most are pretty pointless to me.  I just watch the few that seem interesting to me.

I don't visit C9 much anymore because too many people use it as a forum to rag on Microsoft (are we up to the 100th anti-IE thread yet?) or flame one another.

Just my $0.02.

Loadsgood wrote: Hey Lenn, is there a user-created poll present for me in this next release? I did think that all Microsoft employees would be joining c9, but I'm not disappointed about it. And anyway I like the ones we've got around here Please don't put in a similar messenger-style chat room where we see the other person (shudder...). Am I the only person who doesn't like the videos much? I come back for the chat, not the videos. I don't even look at what the front-page-video is, but I would if you put back the c9 admin created polls. Thats just my opinion.