A phpBB style forum would be a much better venue for communicating

[Guest]

Having used this community newsgroup "forum" for the past few days, I have to say that it is quite cumbersome and not very user friendly. A phpBB style forum would be much, much better. I'm sure that there are a lot of people out there that agree with me. Newsgroups are so "old school". Get with the times Microsoft! It's time you moved into the 21st Century.

Rein

 

[Crusty \Old B@stard\]

Use a news reader program, such as Outlook Express, and it is not cumbersome
at all!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Hilary Karp]

That's because you are using the web interface which is clunky, error
prone and hard to search. Use a newsgroup reader like you have availibe
in XP, outlook express:

Using Outlook Express as a Newsreader
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Having used this community newsgroup "forum" for the past few days, I
have to say that it is quite cumbersome and not very user friendly. A
phpBB style forum would be much, much better. I'm sure that there are
a lot of people out there that agree with me. Newsgroups are so "old
school". Get with the times Microsoft! It's time you moved into the
21st Century.

You have it entirely backward. *You* have made the choice to
access this newsgroup via the web interface. I completely agree.
It's the most cumbersome, slowest, clunkiest, most error-prone
method there is. Do yourself a favor and switch to a newsreader,
such as Outlook Express, which comes with Windows.

See http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the feedback guys! I used Outlook express when I was into newsgroups way back when and it worked pretty well I guess. I didn't care to much for downloading the messages headers. When I stumbled into the site, viewing it with Outlook Express didn't even cross my mind. Web is much easier for me, as I may access it from different computers.

Most of the communities that I hang out in use phpBB - which I think is the greatest. The responses automatically move up to the top, it's easy to find your own stuff, search are more refined, colors, fonts, formatting, polls, you name it!

Since we all agree that this interface is so bad, I wish someone would change it. DO YOU HEAR US MICROSOFT! WE (okay, just a few of us) HAVE SPOKEN!!!!

If you thing this is bad and needs to be changed, please let your voice be heard!!


Have a nice day =)

 

[Guest]

Oh ... and you can go back and fix your typos!! Hehe... (sorry)

 

[Alex Nichol]

Having used this community newsgroup "forum" for the past few days, I have to say that it is quite cumbersome and not very user friendly. A phpBB style forum would be much, much better.

I do some helping on a PhpBB site and find it slow and obstructive
compared with using this in NNTP with a proper newsreader.

 

[Al Dykes]

for the feedback guys! I used Outlook express when I was into
newsgroups way back when and it worked pretty well I guess. I didn't
care to much for downloading the messages headers. When I stumbled
into the site, viewing it with Outlook Express didn't even cross my
mind. Web is much easier for me, as I may access it from different
computers. > >Most of the communities that I hang out in use phpBB -
which I think is the greatest. The responses automatically move up to
the top, it's easy to find your own stuff, search are more refined,
colors, fonts, formatting, polls, you name it! > >Since we all agree
that this interface is so bad, I wish someone would change it. DO YOU
HEAR US MICROSOFT! WE (okay, just a few of us) HAVE SPOKEN!!!! >

You may be unhappy with _your_ inteface, but mine is fine.


BTW; your lines need wrapping.

I "hang out" in this group and watch all the subject lines go by,
learning things and contributing, once in a while. Since I've been
away for a couple days the's a 1800 message backlog. I use TRN
newsreader in a shell account on my ISP's system. I'll get thru this
backlog in about 100 seconds, hitting SHIFT-D key about once a second
to see the next 20 subject lines in threaded mode. The hands will
never leave the home position on the keyboard, let alone require a
reach for the mouse. (If I stop to read a message or compose an
answer to one, it will obviously take more time.)

To read this group in a GUI newsreader is about 20-1 loss in
productivity IMHO. Web bbs chat groups are ever worse;

- Each chat group has it's own navigation that has learning curve.
- Search capabilities vary
- the bbs chat groups are not archived in google news (aka DejaNews)
- Finding old messages via the web search engines is spotty.
- The message display and threading can be bizzare.
- If the bbs is cookie-based I have to re-read stuff, and loose settings
if I try to use the bbs frommore than one machine. With TRN/Usenet
all my "state" information is stored on the server. I can read
usenet from any PC and always get just the unread messages.

I groan whenever something I need to come up to speed on a new chat
group. With TRN, I can add a newsgroup to my list and when I see it
for the first time see that there are many thousand unread messages.
If I think it's useful can blow the history in a few minutes.

I don't hang out in _any_ bbs chat groups. I find it a very
unproductive use of my time.