T
Tom Willett
The beginning of the end, Suzanne.
: MS has hired contractors in India to man the forums. Although they have
been
: strictly instructed to follow a "community first" policy (that is, give
: ordinary volunteer end users the opportunity to answer first) and not
answer
: questions until they are 12-24 hours old without an answer, what we're
: seeing is that many of them (a) rush in with an answer, usually a
reference
: to a KB article that may or may not be relevant (it's hard to tell without
: actually clicking on the link and going to the article, since they don't
: quote the title of the article), (b) ignore previous answers that may
: actually be more helpful, and then (c) mark their replies as Answers.
We're
: trying to get this corrected, but since the contractors are being paid
based
: on their performance, it's hard to see how that's going to work. There is
: also a lot of resistance to the point system, which a lot of us see as
: having a bad influence on those who are NOT being paid to answer.
:
: Rest assured, the MVPs will continue to soldier on as long as we can. What
: I'm finding, though, that the reduction of granularity in the forums (30
: English-language Word NGs poured into three Word forums) means that each
: forum contains more questions that I'm not qualified to answer and
: consequently have to skip, making it more time-consuming for me to handle
: the questions. There's also considerable angst about the fact that there
are
: no product-specific VBA or "programming" forums--just a single Office
: Programming forum on Answers and separate Word, Excel, and Outlook
: development forums on MSDN, where end users are less likely to find them.
: Access is even worse off: down from 28 English-language NGs to one forum
: shared with Visio and Project!
:
: --
: Suzanne S. Barnhill
: Microsoft MVP (Word)
: Words into Type
: Fairhope, Alabama USA
: http://word.mvps.org
:
: : > Suzanne (if you get this post)
: >
: > I notice that some responders in 'Answers' actually work for MS which
you
: > and others MVPs do not. How will this affect those of you we have been
: > speaking to?
: > Are they timing this change with the release of 2010? Will th others be
: > using another forum or is 'Answer' the replacement?
: >
: > Thanks
: > Dottie
: >
: > "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
: >
: >> I have noted considerable fall-off in all the msnews NGs. I think
people
: >> have already started migrating to Answers, as there seems to be a
steady
: >> increase in questions posted there.
: >>
: >> --
: >> Suzanne S. Barnhill
: >> Microsoft MVP (Word)
: >> Words into Type
: >> Fairhope, Alabama USA
: >> http://word.mvps.org
: >>
: >>
: >> > Has the newsgroup been turned off? No new posting since 9:24 am
(EDT)!
: >> >
: >>
: >> .
: >>
: >
:
: MS has hired contractors in India to man the forums. Although they have
been
: strictly instructed to follow a "community first" policy (that is, give
: ordinary volunteer end users the opportunity to answer first) and not
answer
: questions until they are 12-24 hours old without an answer, what we're
: seeing is that many of them (a) rush in with an answer, usually a
reference
: to a KB article that may or may not be relevant (it's hard to tell without
: actually clicking on the link and going to the article, since they don't
: quote the title of the article), (b) ignore previous answers that may
: actually be more helpful, and then (c) mark their replies as Answers.
We're
: trying to get this corrected, but since the contractors are being paid
based
: on their performance, it's hard to see how that's going to work. There is
: also a lot of resistance to the point system, which a lot of us see as
: having a bad influence on those who are NOT being paid to answer.
:
: Rest assured, the MVPs will continue to soldier on as long as we can. What
: I'm finding, though, that the reduction of granularity in the forums (30
: English-language Word NGs poured into three Word forums) means that each
: forum contains more questions that I'm not qualified to answer and
: consequently have to skip, making it more time-consuming for me to handle
: the questions. There's also considerable angst about the fact that there
are
: no product-specific VBA or "programming" forums--just a single Office
: Programming forum on Answers and separate Word, Excel, and Outlook
: development forums on MSDN, where end users are less likely to find them.
: Access is even worse off: down from 28 English-language NGs to one forum
: shared with Visio and Project!
:
: --
: Suzanne S. Barnhill
: Microsoft MVP (Word)
: Words into Type
: Fairhope, Alabama USA
: http://word.mvps.org
:
: : > Suzanne (if you get this post)
: >
: > I notice that some responders in 'Answers' actually work for MS which
you
: > and others MVPs do not. How will this affect those of you we have been
: > speaking to?
: > Are they timing this change with the release of 2010? Will th others be
: > using another forum or is 'Answer' the replacement?
: >
: > Thanks
: > Dottie
: >
: > "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
: >
: >> I have noted considerable fall-off in all the msnews NGs. I think
people
: >> have already started migrating to Answers, as there seems to be a
steady
: >> increase in questions posted there.
: >>
: >> --
: >> Suzanne S. Barnhill
: >> Microsoft MVP (Word)
: >> Words into Type
: >> Fairhope, Alabama USA
: >> http://word.mvps.org
: >>
: >>
: >> > Has the newsgroup been turned off? No new posting since 9:24 am
(EDT)!
: >> >
: >>
: >> .
: >>
: >
: