Announcing: MSDN Community Support Forums!

Check out this post I made before you added this news item.

As I said, Microsoft has learnt Newsgroups are dead.

I'll have some more information on my blog tonight. I don't personally believe the newsgroups are that dead, but I do believe that the needs of the community have evolved beyond the functionality of the public NNTP protocol.

Spam has killed newsgroups simple as that. You can't post now without receiving masses of bull in your box forever more...

Further more I think newsgroup's e-mail integration was always a bad idea even on paper... You could have easily written a protocol that allows data submission instead of borrowing an existing one.

With HTTP you have a richer user experience (images!) and which is more accessible to everyone. You can also both receive and post very easily (same protocol). You also don't have to worry about spam most of the time.

(Don't even get me started on the fact that a newgroup post contains the sender's IP address!)

My original title was "I'd kill to get Microsoft Forums for my product too", but I figured Josh might get the wrong idea...

Well, it is still tonight according to my watch...
http://blogs.msdn.com/jledgard/archive/2005/04/08/406430.aspx

If *only* passport sign on wasn't mandatory to post comments, I'd really enjoyed the forums. Anyway, I like a guy's post in the VC++ forum...

"I decide to be a VC++ MVP in this new forum."
)))))

As someone who reads MS newsgroups almost daily I can tell you they are not dead.   Possibly when this forum has all the topics that the newsgroups have the newsgroups may die off but I would doubt it.  Heck, cobol is still in use today! 

Maybe "dead" is a little OTT but new generations don't
find the same appeal with using Newsgroups as the
previous did and thus the numbers of people that
will post will gradually die as the people do...

I think that's a better way to state it.  I've seen the same trend and I've been wanting to make sure we don't ignore it or risk losing future generations of developers. Having options for posting is not a bad thing.

We'll also be working to expand the scope of the search in the future for VS so that it matters less where the information comes from.  We believe, however, that for first time people, coming from VS, we can service them better with forums.

very good,but it will be better if it has a
Chinese version.

Charles wrote:

Wow. Check this out when you have a technical problem you want help with or just want to learn a thing or two.

http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/


Nice Job Josh and team!


C

What does it take to post a message?

I sign up for a "passport".

I sign up for the forums.

I try to post (but the editing page just reloads itself).

I read the FAQ.

I add the forums to the "Trusted Sites" security zone.

I set that zone to its default level.

Wow, nothing works!

No kidding, I even tried switching browsers, but no luck... can't post (oh well, enough of that).

Alrighty then (second wind)... the site, unlike every other forum in the world, was incompatible with my internet security program!

Well now that I can post, I don't even want to (because they must be retarded).

Everyone appreciates feedback as long as it is kept constructive. I'd like to help figure out what issues you've been running into.

Could you explain what security program you are running that you believe caused you to experience the issue.  If you'd like to talk offline you can mail me @ jledgard@microsoft.com. 

I narrowed it down to "Cookie" and "Referer" needing to be permitted for the site from Norton Internet Security.  Thanks.