Leaving C9 for a while

C9 seems to have become very negative in the past few months, and so I'm going to be taking my leave for a while.

C9 was always supposed to be about trying to get a Microsoft view-point on stuff, and learn about cool new technologies and how they work before they hit the stores.

It was supposed to be about understanding why Microsoft does stuff and how Microsoft does stuff.

Complaining about Microsoft stuff or trying to change how Microsoft does stuff were always better handled by other forums such as slashdot or connect. C9 was always supposed to be positive and informative: "I wonder why on earth they made this decision" and then a Microsoft viewpoint that makes you think "aha - there is a reason, and that reason changes how I see the world".

Sadly a lot of posts on C9 recently have been exceptionally negative and delved far beyond constructive criticism. In trying to be positive and try to think of reasons why Microsoft made decisions, I seem to have made things worse - kicking up a storm of anger from some people here on C9 that I never intended or expected to happen, and for that I apologise.

The return of beer28 seems to have reduced the number of actual (declared) Microsoft folk here to almost zero and the few who are left abstain from discussions to do with Microsoft.

The secrecy of Win8 has meant that even the videos haven't been particularly insightful of late, focusing instead on early-stage language and concurrency research rather than products like IE, Office, VS and Windows.

So anyway, after a bit of thought I've decided to take an extended holiday from C9. It's been great while it lasted, and I'll miss you guys.

So until I return, farewell niners!

Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the bright side of life

Some things in life are bad, they can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble give a whistle
This will help things turn out for the best

Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the right side of life

If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing
When you're feeling in the dumps, don't be silly, chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing

So, always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a counterfeit and when you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's the joke, it's true
You see, it's all a show, keep them laughing as you go
Just remember the last laugh is on you

Always look on the bright side of life
And always look on the right side of life

Always look on the bright side of life
And always look on the right side of life

-Eric Idle

What we need is a vacation. The Coffee House should close for a week.

I am pretty sure we all read the Windows Blog to know what Microsoft is preaching about. Keep repeating what Microsoft has officially announced is not going to change the people who already read the blog.

Google has "don't be evil" and "organize all the world's information and make it more useful", and pretty much "we help you make it happen on the Internet". Google managed to pretty much advertise themselves as the superhero of the open source community, while still keeping their important stuff closed. Brilliant.

Apple has (had?) the idea of a creative, but deeply flawed genius trying to make a dent in the world. It's a beautiful story (can't wait for the Steve Jobs movie). Designing products that are "magical" and "game changing", and manage to blend art and technology in a convincing way.

Technology is an incredibly emotional thing. It's the soul of modern civilization. Modern civilization IS the result of ordinary technologists like us. If you work in this industry, your JOB to advance the human condition through technology. No matter where you work or what you do. And technology companies like Microsoft, Google and Apple are the big progressors of civilization. The world is counting on us to make their lives better, and they want to be reminded that is what we are doing.

Microsoft don't seem to be able to capitalize on that. They really give the aura of "we are here to make money and be boring", and that's why Slashdot and the rest of the tech media constantly rails on them. Yeah, MSR is cool, but only in a nerdy, tier 1 university way. They fail to make the connection. There is no superhero story in this company.

@evildictaitor: I fully understand.  I often wonder why I bother coming back here just to sit through endless trolling and negativity. DeathByVisualStudio, WastingTimeWithForums, Beer, and (to a lesser extent) Bass seems to have brought the whole place to it's knees; well done.

Herbie

"(to a lesser extent) Bass"

I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or an insult.

Honestly I think the more traditional haters (not naming myself, sorry) are getting soft. Look at Slashdot, they recently replaced the iconic Bill Gates as Borg icon for Microsoft stories with Microsoft's actual logo. And I've read several Slashdot stories lately that have been *gasp* positive about Microsoft. This is a strange world we live in.

@Dr Herbie:

Aside from bashers, I miss Dovella. He is one true MS fan, but, sadly C9 is not the place for him.

1 hour ago, Bass wrote

I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or an insult.

As an insult.

@evildictaitor: I feel exactly the same way as Dr. Herbie. The sad thing is that last night I was actually thinking how there were finally some fun technology threads to follow again, The C++ Extension Methods thread, MasterPie's Kinect event board thread, the Win8 XAML/JS thread... But it's just a temporary flash in endless amounts of noise from the usual handful of suspects.

The - at first - obvious solution to this is for the rest (and for any lurking MS employees) to post lots of stuff that is interesting, but this isn't going to work. For every good thread on this forum people like WastingTimewithForums and DeathByVisualStudio wil post ten saying the exact same thing they've been saying for the past couple of months. Say what you will about Beer but at least he's varied.

Forums tend to suffer the 'loudest drunk in the bar' syndrome, and lose audience as a result.

I'd find an 'ignore' feature to be useful.

I could nominate posters I wish to ignore.

Threads started by them would not be displayed to me.

Replies made by them would not be displayed to me.

The Channel9 has lost some of its charm.

I more or less agree with everything in evildictaitors post and i think its a valid point the the secrecy of win8 has made most videos not particulary insightfull and making us have do discuss marketing instead of technology.

About the coffee house ... One major issue is that almost all subjects gets derailed and changed into some google vs ms vs linux boring discussion. Mostly caused by some stupid rant from beer28.

Since we cant get rid of that person-without-a-life ... we atleast can hide his posts when he derails a topic.

Adding to elmers points CH9 should implement a mechanism to track if a reply is a reply to somebody elses post.

Because that would allow me to block all post by beer28 and all replys made to his posts leaving me with a discussion of the original topic. In the end that would leave me with only the replys that are relevant to the original topic.

And beer28 screaming in a corner where nobody can see or hear him.

1 hour ago, Bas wrote

The - at first - obvious solution to this is for the rest (and for any lurking MS employees) to post lots of stuff that is interesting, but this isn't going to work.

Part of the problem is that I have no incentive to try and post something interesting when I know it'll be derailed into a hate-fest by the likes of Beer within ten posts.

MS employees have said they don't like to post here because everything they say is taken as an official MS statement. This however should be easy to solve: besides the MS logo watermark, add an automatic disclaimer to every post made by an MS employee. Maybe that would help get MS employees to post here again.

Beer gets banned every time but why is he allowed to come back every time? Same with raymond, posts only political Youtube videos but doesn't post anything else.

1 hour ago, elmer wrote

Forums tend to suffer the 'loudest drunk in the bar' syndrome, and lose audience as a result.

I'd find an 'ignore' feature to be useful.

I could nominate posters I wish to ignore.

Threads started by them would not be displayed to me.

Replies made by them would not be displayed to me.

To hide posts made by people you want to ignore, add

[data-author=DeathByVisualStudio]{display:none;}

to the user CSS in your profile for each person you tire of.

Quotes and threads in the list of threads don't get hidden though, nor do replies made to their posts. Maybe someone who enjoys playing with CSS more than I do will be able to provide a way.

Of course, this doesn't stop people like Beer who register a new username every week and it doesn't help this place looking like the worst community in the world to newcomers who don't have any custom CSS yet.

37 minutes ago, Bas wrote

*snip* 

Quotes and threads in the list of threads don't get hidden though, nor do replies made to their posts [...] and it doesn't help this place looking like the worst community in the world to newcomers who don't have any custom CSS yet

Thats the important part and the tricky one to solve. Guess the only way is to appoint moderators than can hide threads in threads when derailing occours. Besides that CH9 need to rearchitecture the forum so it becomes possible to hide threads in threads.

@evildictaitor: I must admit that I am disappointied, as I was really pleased when you returned, because the quality soared after just a few days of your posting.

I do feel a little guilty and culpable, as I haven't always been the most positive poster of late, but I really feel Microsoft messed me about with their client development stack, so much that there are now very few Technical evangelists (apart from Azure) that commit to generating content, be that Jaime Rodriguez, Yochay Kiriaty, Tim Heuer or even Tim Sneath.

I still stand by everything I said however, and am beginning to see that there was some truth in my complaints. I would however feel exactly the same as you, if people behaved the way they did with everything I posted, as there is nothing so offensive to such a fertile mind.

Adios, amigos!

Do not try to bend the spoon, for that is impossible.

Instead, try and realize the truth.

There is no spoon.

Then you will see that it is you that bends.