Also if done right it might even be a way to turn some of the complaints into useful feedback for MS to use in fixing problems.

not saying the second item will be easy to do or will it even work in the real world but it might be worth trying out.

I do think that some of the posts made here have been from folks who wanted to tell MS something about what they saw as a bad idea or wrong direction, and I think the hope is that someone working for MS might read the post and act on it.   that may be a false hope but the idea is right,  that there should be some place to tell MS what we think and to get MS to at least take a look at the post.

I know there are some channels to do this but I think very few folks know about them and several of them are limited to only a few select users.

The Key is to have a way to find the really good feedback posts and filter out the "I hate MS" posts.

Why this different place and not just the tell folks to go to the "Product " boards.   Many folks I think see them as a dead end for a complaint, that most of the topics will be ignored or get a "sorry that is not how this works" kind of reply. But the OP wants to get the feedback to the folks who will think about making a change in the next version of the product.  Also I think during for example the windows 8 beta that a lot of feedback for changes in it were ignored by MS even when they were common to many beta test users.  If  folks are trying to tell MS that they feel that a change needs to be made and if that post seems to be well meant then telling the poster "go away" or that they are some how bad / wrong / trolling etc... In many cases only makes the poster more negative about MS and how they handle critical comments.  How does that help in the end?   It really hurts MS if that poster starts out as someone who had a positive view of MS.

Microsoft: this might be a way to try and turn some lemons into some Lemonade ! 

Take the energy and passion of the honest feedback and make something good come out of it! 

How many threads that aren't bitching about something make it past one page of replys. Even lucky if it gets one reply. Of course complaining about not having threads that are complaints is itself a form of complaining (ie. meta-complaining), which is in itself quite a recurring topic here in its own right.

Interestingly, this post would be an vague a form of meta-meta-complaining, which is complaining about complaining about not having threads that are complaints is itself a form of complaining. My reply is thus meta-meta-meta-complaining, which is complaining about complaining about complaining about not having threads that are complaints is itself a form of complaining. How far this complainception will go is anyone's guess.

16 minutes ago, Bass wrote

Interestingly, this post would be an vague a form of meta-meta-complaining, which is complaining about complaining about not having threads that are complaints is itself a form of complaining. My reply is thus meta-meta-meta-complaining, which is complaining about complaining about complaining about not having threads that are complaints is itself a form of complaining. How far this complainception will go is anyone's guess.

For god's sake, stop meta-meta-meta complaining. It's driving me mad.

52 minutes ago, Bass wrote

Sorry but no. If there was no bitching here the place would be dead.

Seeing how people over the years have left because of the bitching and pointless arguments, some house cleaning can only be good and may invite better discussions.

3 hours ago, figuerres wrote

Microsoft: this might be a way to try and turn some lemons into some Lemonade ! 

Take the energy and passion of the honest feedback and make something good come out of it! 

That's what connect.microsoft.com is.

I think perhaps the best way for this to resolve itself is for the people writing the threads hating at Win8/VS2012/lack of gadget sidebar in Win8/etc to realize that those threads are only even vaguely interesting when they're new. At the point where everyone is aware that you hate Win8, nobody cares anymore that you write another thread saying that you hate it. We get it. The start menu is gone. Get over it.

C9 isn't really suited to bi-directional feedback on products. It's a place to learn why and how Microsoft does something, rather than complain that Microsoft does something. And when the threads get too high on the latter, the people who were giving information about the former get bored and leave, and you're left with a forum that is just a husk and a shadow of its former self.

At the point where you're here to complain rather than here to learn, it's time to leave.

3 hours ago, figuerres wrote

...someone working for MS might read the post and act on it.   that may be a false hope

Me thinks false hope. I believe MS have a different process in mind and they are really not interested such ideas. As a (very, very, very small-scale) developer myself, I can't imagine having to deal with such a broad-ranging, diverse user base. It feels MS have made a decision to go ahead a shed some business and 'techie/tinkerer type' customers in pursuit of the consumer marketplace. ...but, that's just me :-/

1 hour ago, evildictait​or wrote

*snip*

That's what connect.microsoft.com is.

I think perhaps the best way for this to resolve itself is for the people writing the threads hating at Win8/VS2012/lack of gadget sidebar in Win8/etc to realize that those threads are only even vaguely interesting when they're new. At the point where everyone is aware that you hate Win8, nobody cares anymore that you write another thread saying that you hate it. We get it. The start menu is gone. Get over it.

C9 isn't really suited to bi-directional feedback on products. It's a place to learn why and how Microsoft does something, rather than complain that Microsoft does something. And when the threads get too high on the latter, the people who were giving information about the former get bored and leave, and you're left with a forum that is just a husk and a shadow of its former self.

At the point where you're here to complain rather than here to learn, it's time to leave.

well I have been on connect all the way back to when it was called "ladybug" or something like that.

problem is I have never seen it work, really....  I have seen more than a few valid problems there that just never get a fix, they get closed as "won't fix" or "by design" etc...
when MS had a beta test for a recent x-box update they did not want bugs posted in connect, they told everyone to go to a private x-box feedback forum instead of using connect.  WTF? we signup for a beta test on connect and then do not use the feedback tool that is part of the system ?so I gave up on going there ... 

possibly it is time to leave .... you may have a point.

1 hour ago, figuerres wrote

*snip*

problem is I have never seen it work, really....  I have seen more than a few valid problems there that just never get a fix, they get closed as "won't fix" or "by design" etc...

Have you ever seen a complaint (e.g. against Win8's start menu or lack thereof) in C9's coffeehouse "work" either?

15 minutes ago, dentaku wrote

Do you all remember Long Zheng's http://www.aerotaskforce.com/
It's was organized and developed solely for figuring out which changes most of us thought needed to be made. I know Long thinks it wasn't much but I think it actually made a difference because complaining on forums doesn't help at all.

Hey there. I know it made some difference, people inside Microsoft told me so, but there was/is a cost to running a site like that (not server cost) that doesn't pay off very well now,

If I were to relaunch it, I'd basically need to redo the site to fix all the functionality/usability/security issues that were lingering around. Nearing the end of the service it was also susceptible to spam/trolling (non automated) that was a bother to administrate.

Currently I don't have the time or drive to do this for free and Microsoft already pays a lot of money to companies like UserVoice (where they host their Windows Phone feature requests http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions and other products), so I can't really convince anyone to fund any future development.

2 hours ago, longzheng wrote

*snip*

Currently I don't have the time or drive to do this for free and Microsoft already pays a lot of money to companies like UserVoice (where they host their Windows Phone feature requests http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions and other products), so I can't really convince anyone to fund any future development.

1 hour ago, dentaku wrote

Figuerres has a good idea that Channel 9 could be able to take this on since they have the resources and the original point of C9 was to give MS a way to communicate with enthusiasts and geeks like us.

The problem there is that if Microsoft makes the forum, it needs to be properly supported and maintained in order to avoid damaging Microsoft's reputation. At least when it's a third-party like uservoice or aerotaskforce, Microsoft can pick and choose issues to respond to and doesn't have to administer the site to make it shiny, work well, test it, de-spam it or de-toxify it if it becomes a massive hate-fest etc.

Also it becomes a focus point for anti-Microsoft press; the headlines turn into "Microsoft's official complaints against Windows8 now reaches N!" or "X people have asked Microsoft to re-introduce the start menu!" - even if X is small (like 1000), it's bad press that Microsoft is bringing on itself.

If you're the head of PR at Microsoft and you open the newspaper in the morning to see "Microsoft Flagship Product XP now has X people hating it on official Microsoft forum", and you investigate to see that Microsoft is, in fact, hosting a site almost solely dedicated to tearing apart its own products - what would you do?

Sometimes you have to think about ideas from multiple angles. Yes, the site would probably be useful and have some useful feedback. But it would also almost certainly be used as anti-Microsoft ammunition by vested-interest journalists. If it were over-policed it would get bad press for "censoring" issues, if it were underpoliced it would rapidly gain more noise than signal or become utterly toxic.

It seems that a better solution would be uservoice or something to do the legwork. Making it a Microsoft-branded feedback site sounds like a recipe for disaster.

23 hours ago, evildictait​or wrote

*snip*

We get it. The start menu is gone. Get over it.

I know you don't speak for Microsoft but it's this sort of attitude that just keeps people that disagree responding again and again. Instead of adding more coals to the fire why not say "we've discussed the start menu to death. Let's move on."

That said it really does feel like the attitude in your response is the attitude coming from Microsoft. I haven't seen much from Microsoft in terms of an olive branch being offered to either developers or users for the issues they've unapologetically created. I could understand their attitude if their stuff was superior but it's not. It's like they can make up the difference by injecting attitude. As Stcott said they seem fine with shedding some from the user base:

22 hours ago, ScottWelker wrote

*snip*

Me thinks false hope. I believe MS have a different process in mind and they are really not interested such ideas. As a (very, very, very small-scale) developer myself, I can't imagine having to deal with such a broad-ranging, diverse user base. It feels MS have made a decision to go ahead a shed some business and 'techie/tinkerer type' customers in pursuit of the consumer marketplace. ...but, that's just me :-/

Scott I agree but I believe Microsoft is underestimating the number of those being shed. On the other side of the equation IMO they aren't winning over consumers because they offer nothing better than what's already out there. So they have a great laptop replacement story in the Surface Pro and the like... great but that doesn't necessarily win them anything in the consumer space where the iPad is more of what people are looking for. IMO the Courier would have been a better bet. On Surface RT they could have had a great product for students but they screwed it up by not including a digitizer and a more fully featured version of OneNote. That's what kills me about Microsoft; they have the ability to just totally nail it but instead they accept mediocrity and expect their customers to do the same. 

12 minutes ago, DeathBy​VisualStudio wrote

I know you don't speak for Microsoft but it's this sort of attitude that just keeps people that disagree responding again and again. Instead of adding more coals to the fire why not say "we've discussed the start menu to death. Let's move on."

So, shoving an opinion down people's throats repeatedly is the right response to "attitude" you don't agree with? You feel someone's being a jerk so you stoop to the same level, basically?

20 minutes ago, DeathBy​VisualStudio wrote

I know you don't speak for Microsoft but it's this sort of attitude that just keeps people that disagree responding again and again. Instead of adding more coals to the fire why not say "we've discussed the start menu to death. Let's move on."

To me they are equivilent statements. I do not have a favourable or a unfavourable opinion of the Win8 start menu. I don't care. The point is that it's gone. I can't do anything about it for you, you complaining doesn't do anything about it for you, and discussing it here on C9 clearly isn't doing anything about it for you.

That's what I mean when I say "the start menu is gone, get over it".

1 hour ago, evildictait​or wrote

*snip*

The problem there is that if Microsoft makes the forum, it needs to be properly supported and maintained in order to avoid damaging Microsoft's reputation. At least when it's a third-party like uservoice or aerotaskforce, Microsoft can pick and choose issues to respond to and doesn't have to administer the site to make it shiny, work well, test it, de-spam it or de-toxify it if it becomes a massive hate-fest etc.

Also it becomes a focus point for anti-Microsoft press; the headlines turn into "Microsoft's official complaints against Windows8 now reaches N!" or "X people have asked Microsoft to re-introduce the start menu!" - even if X is small (like 1000), it's bad press that Microsoft is bringing on itself.

If you're the head of PR at Microsoft and you open the newspaper in the morning to see "Microsoft Flagship Product XP now has X people hating it on official Microsoft forum", and you investigate to see that Microsoft is, in fact, hosting a site almost solely dedicated to tearing apart its own products - what would you do?

Sometimes you have to think about ideas from multiple angles. Yes, the site would probably be useful and have some useful feedback. But it would also almost certainly be used as anti-Microsoft ammunition by vested-interest journalists. If it were over-policed it would get bad press for "censoring" issues, if it were underpoliced it would rapidly gain more noise than signal or become utterly toxic.

It seems that a better solution would be uservoice or something to do the legwork. Making it a Microsoft-branded feedback site sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Just want to add this:  I do know / understand that it's a hard one: there are drawbacks to trying to do such a site  and there are drawbacks to not doing one.....

IMHO MS has a lot to gain and a lot to lose both ways.  it's not a small simple thing to make a call on.   In one way even to have this thread might help *IF* some of the folks pass it on to MS that some folks feel strongly about the issue of how to get the feedback to them and that some folks with good intent and possibly some real world experience feel this.

sometimes the anger comes out of the passion to get it right but having your hands tied. at least to "get it right" in the POV of the poster, still might be wrong but that's another part of the story.