I just started using Windows Live Mail and tried to
post a message through Microsoft Communities rather
than my default news server. [....] does it take a
while for messages posted this way to appear
on the board?
What do you mean by "the" message board? Do you mean messages viewed
through MS Communities? Or do you mean messages viewed through
another newsgroup server, e.g. your default news server?
Do you realize that there is no centralized "message board", as there
was in the days of the BBSes?
Instead, there is an amorphous network of news servers, each with the
responsibility to forward news articles out to its "neighbors". Also,
many complex news server sites are structured with front-end and back-
end sets of computers: the front-end receives your posting; the back-
end stores postings and makes them available to you. There can be
networking communications problems and delays between any two
computers.
My experience has been: soon after you submit a posting through MS
Communities, it appears to users of the MS Communities news server.
There can be a delay, however, even for that; but the delay tends to
be measured in minutes, not hours, for example, in my experience.
However, there can be huge delays before the posting appears on other
news servers. The delay can be the fault of either the MS server(s)
or other news servers, both intermediary servers as well as the
alternative one you might use for reading.
Also, in my experience, posting submitted through the MS server
sometimes never reach external servers -- at least, not Google
Groups. I don't know why; I cannot find a pattern that would predict
the failure. Again, the fault can be either the MS server's or some
external server's.
On the flip-side, every news server can have problems, be it
forwarding posting or receiving them. When GG servers have problems,
I use the MS servers, and often the posting eventually appears in GG
as well as MS Communities. The converse is true, too. Go figure!
