From: TMA on
?????

Why doesn't M$ just create another room HERE for Windows 7 like they always
did to their new OS'es?

I don't know about you guys, but I'm TIRED of signing up to hundreds and
hundreds of badly designed web forums. Each one requiring my e-mail address
(for later spam) and different password rules.

From: Bobby Johnson on
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Microsoft Responds to the Evolution of Online Communities
Date: Tue, 04 May 2010 12:26:53 -0700 (UTC)
From: nntp(a)microsoft.com
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.64bit.general

Date 5/4/2010
Starting in early summer 2010, Microsoft will begin progressively
closing down the Microsoft public newsgroups to enrich conversations in
the rapidly-growing forum platform. This decision is in response to
worldwide market trends and evolving customer needs.

Microsoft continues to invest in forums to reduce customer effort,
consolidate community venues and make it easier for active contributors
to retain their influence. Forums provide a healthy community
environment with less spam and make answers easier to find by customers
and search engines. Additionally, forums offer a better user and
off-topic management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by
facilitating discussions in a clean space.

We understand that some newsgroups are still active, and important to
the community. In the coming days and weeks, we will be rolling out
tools and resources to minimize disruption to the community discussions.

We are working diligently on providing additional resources and
information in local languages later this week. In the meantime, please
refer to the official Microsoft Newsgroup website
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx concerning
this issue. The Microsoft Newsgroup website will be made available in
additional languages in the next few days.


On 2010-05-05 14:06, TMA wrote:
> ?????
>
> Why doesn't M$ just create another room HERE for Windows 7 like they
> always did to their new OS'es?
>
> I don't know about you guys, but I'm TIRED of signing up to hundreds and
> hundreds of badly designed web forums. Each one requiring my e-mail
> address (for later spam) and different password rules.
From: TMA on
> Starting in early summer 2010, Microsoft will begin progressively closing
> down the Microsoft public newsgroups to enrich conversations in the
> rapidly-growing forum platform. This decision is in response to worldwide
> market trends and evolving customer needs.

Yeah, and how about letting the users decide which one to use in opposition
to dictate what worldwide market trends responds?
Why simply discontinue this useful tool and migrate all the effords to the
annoying web format?

> Microsoft continues to invest in forums to reduce customer effort,
> consolidate community venues and make it easier for active contributors to
> retain their influence. Forums provide a healthy community environment
> with less spam and make answers easier to find by customers and search
> engines. Additionally, forums offer a better user and off-topic
> management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by
> facilitating discussions in a clean space.

I don't know where you guys are looking .... "less spam" ????? Spam is all
over the web and publishing technical IT questions on "search engines" like
google and bing will attract even more spammers and viewers and consequently
off-topic issues. Newsgroup clients don't have commercial banners, don't
spread my email address all over the place, are pretty direct and mostly
used by people with "some" level of knowledge of what he's doing. And that's
why I like to use it instead of web forums and that's why M$ doesn't want me
to do so. That's my own opinion, but it pretty much makes sense, doesn't it?

> We are working diligently on providing additional resources and
> information in local languages later this week. In the meantime, please
> refer to the official Microsoft Newsgroup website
> http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx concerning
> this issue. The Microsoft Newsgroup website will be made available in
> additional languages in the next few days.

M$ is a multinational company and its priorities are obviously focused on
the money making. I don't really have a problem with that, but I want to
protest against some of these decisions.

That's all a pity is all I can say. I consider this one sided decision as an
strategic mistake because all it does is to promote the growth of the
competitors (read Apple and Linux communities). Web based forums must exist,
of course, but there also should be options where your questions won't be
just mixed with 300 million others, and in my opinion THIS should be the
place. I am not familiar with Apple, but Linux is pretty easy with that as
they maintein public irc rooms where sometimes you can even talk to the
developers of the main modules/apps of their FREE releases. This couldn't be
any more efficient.

From: Jeff Gaines on
On 05/05/2010 in message <eTgGy2H7KHA.356(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl> TMA wrote:

>Why doesn't M$ just create another room HERE for Windows 7 like they
>always did to their new OS'es?

MSFT doesn't like Usenet because it can't control it.

alt.windows7.general is an active group with nearly 16,000 posts. I guess
that will be the way to go for those of use who find Usenet far superior
to web based forums.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
There are 3 types of people in this world. Those who can count, and those
who can't.
From: Bobby Johnson on
I just passed on the information Microsoft posted. I have absolutely no
connection with Microsoft otherwise - I am not a Microsoft employee.
You may as well be pissing in the wind as to vent here - it ain't gonna
accomplish nuttin!


On 2010-05-05 15:13, TMA wrote:
>> Starting in early summer 2010, Microsoft will begin progressively
>> closing down the Microsoft public newsgroups to enrich conversations
>> in the rapidly-growing forum platform. This decision is in response to
>> worldwide market trends and evolving customer needs.
>
> Yeah, and how about letting the users decide which one to use in
> opposition to dictate what worldwide market trends responds?
> Why simply discontinue this useful tool and migrate all the effords to
> the annoying web format?
>
>> Microsoft continues to invest in forums to reduce customer effort,
>> consolidate community venues and make it easier for active
>> contributors to retain their influence. Forums provide a healthy
>> community environment with less spam and make answers easier to find
>> by customers and search engines. Additionally, forums offer a better
>> user and off-topic management platform that will improve customer
>> satisfaction by facilitating discussions in a clean space.
>
> I don't know where you guys are looking .... "less spam" ????? Spam is
> all over the web and publishing technical IT questions on "search
> engines" like google and bing will attract even more spammers and
> viewers and consequently off-topic issues. Newsgroup clients don't have
> commercial banners, don't spread my email address all over the place,
> are pretty direct and mostly used by people with "some" level of
> knowledge of what he's doing. And that's why I like to use it instead of
> web forums and that's why M$ doesn't want me to do so. That's my own
> opinion, but it pretty much makes sense, doesn't it?
>
>> We are working diligently on providing additional resources and
>> information in local languages later this week. In the meantime,
>> please refer to the official Microsoft Newsgroup website
>> http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx
>> concerning this issue. The Microsoft Newsgroup website will be made
>> available in additional languages in the next few days.
>
> M$ is a multinational company and its priorities are obviously focused
> on the money making. I don't really have a problem with that, but I want
> to protest against some of these decisions.
>
> That's all a pity is all I can say. I consider this one sided decision
> as an strategic mistake because all it does is to promote the growth of
> the competitors (read Apple and Linux communities). Web based forums
> must exist, of course, but there also should be options where your
> questions won't be just mixed with 300 million others, and in my opinion
> THIS should be the place. I am not familiar with Apple, but Linux is
> pretty easy with that as they maintein public irc rooms where sometimes
> you can even talk to the developers of the main modules/apps of their
> FREE releases. This couldn't be any more efficient.