Hi, John.
You are at least partially correct. :>(
Winston is still active in WLMD. I haven't used WinXP in so long that I
don't visit that NG any longer, but I still see both PA Bear and Shenan in
other groups.
Against vigorous protests from many MVPs, including myself, Microsoft
announced that they are closing these NGs and moving to Forums. Of the
2,000+ former newsgroups here, only about 200 remain as of today, and only
about half of those are in English. Of the 20+ that I subscribed to before,
only 4 are left - and one of them is 13 days past its announced closing
date. Traffic in all these NGs has dropped dramatically. I see only 4,114
messages in this WLMD NG in the past 90 days, to 5/15/10.
Many MVPs have already transitioned to Forums. In my experience, offering
help in Forums is much more time-consuming than in NGs. Simply splitting
our efforts between the two venues takes time away from both, and the time
spent there means that we have much less time to spend here.
My participation in Forums is still small. When I do participate, it is
almost always via the Community NNTP Bridge. That way, I can continue to
use WLMail; other MVPs use other newsreaders, such as Forte Agent or
Thunderbird or many other non-Microsoft choices. Microsoft developed two
NNTP Bridges, one for the Answers forums and another for the "IT Pro"
forums, such as TechNet. MVP Jochen Kalmbach wrote a single bridge for all
those forums and many of us like his "Community NNTP Bridge" better than the
MS versions.
If you'd like to try the Community NNTP Bridge, you can download it free
from here:
http://communitybridge.codeplex.com/
Or, of course, you can use IE or your favorite other browser to participate
in the forums.
Either way, most MVPs were helping users long before Microsoft invented the
Most Valuable Professional award - and, with or without Microsoft public
newsgroups, we'll keep doing what we do because that's who we are. ;<)
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2010 (15.3.2804.0607) in Win7 Ultimate x64
"Urlay Nook" wrote in message
Hello
I've noticed on this group (and on the XP group) that a lot of MVP's replies
no longer appear.
For instance Winston on the WLM group and PA Bear and Shenan Stanley on the
XP group.
Replies from them are included in further questions but I never see there
original reply.
Have the MVP's gone to the forums.
Do I need to go to the forums to follow them.
John