Weblogs.asp.net Future revisited, questioned, and discussed....

Based upon the number of comments It seems that my last post on this topic struck a nerve with some of the weblogs.asp.net bloggers as well as Telligent.   I read the many comments and other posts on this topic, and even had a little more to say in my post's comments.     I don't want to give ScottW and Telligent too much grief over this, they have worked hard on the implementation over the years and I applaud them for it.  However, when discussing this site, you really have to break the discussion into 2 parts; the Engine/Codebase, and the Blog Site.

From the coder's perspective I think ScottW et al have done an excellent job and I look forward to seeing CS 2.0 implemented here so I can gaze in wonder at how much progress they have made and all the new features available.

However, it is from a Blog Site perspective that things fall short.    As a product, the weblogs.asp.net site experience is average to below average at best, and the featureset lags well behind most modern blogging tools & sites..  As a service, it lacks leadership, direction, and needs more transparency to it's users.   Don't make your users hunt for this information, share it directly and openly so we can help fuel future interest in CS and this site.  

Will CS 2.0 solve these problems?   Maybe the featureset will improve, but will attention to the users? 

Who's site is this anyway?  Microsoft's or Telligent's?

When the Microsoft bloggers were added and later segmented into blogs.msdn.com it "just happened".   Most of us were excited about it, because it ushered-in a new era of openness by Microsoft.  However, as an impact to this blogging site, I feel that it sort of dilluted the work of many of the independent bloggers who helped bring traffic and credibility to this site prior to the arrival of Microsoft-financed bloggers.   Later, when Telligent took over the www.asp.net site and these blogs, it just happened.  As far as everyone was concerned, this was still part of the Microsoft family of websites.  However, no explanations were made other than a basic announcement.  Now this site looks more like a step-child with neither parent (Microsoft or Telligent) truly acknowledging their adopted child.    More has already been said about the need for clarifying who is responsible for this site and what their plans are, so I won't rehas this territory.

Are we (weblogs.asp.net bloggers) just a expense and drain on resources, or do we contribute some value?

Now you can easily argue that since this service is Free that we "get what we paid for".  However, think about what Microsoft gets in return for this investment.  Lots of bloggers talking almost exclusively about their latest technology within a respected forum.  There are companies who pay good money to build such a powerful grass-roots marketing machine.   One man's source of excessive bandwidth costs, is another man's thriving business.    If improving this site requires the addition of advertising, lets talk about it.  If it requires an annual fee, lets discuss that too.  But don't neglect the site and say it isnt a high priority - either provide a blog service or don't.  Don't blame the contributors for being a drain.  Rejoice at the fact you have this problem in the first place, then deal with it head-on.  If its a problem solve it.  Ask us how, I bet there are plenty with suggestions and ideas.

In the end, I will make my individual decision on my blogging future.  So will the hundreds of other bloggers here.   If we didnt care about this site, we wouldnt ask these questions, we would just leave.  My hope is that Microsoft and Telligent will clarify their blogging story and engage the masses on this site to create a roadmap for the future that benefits everyone.  The ball is in your court.

6 Comments


  • I can post entries and comments, it's a blog, what more does it need?



    It's hardly a matter of life or death.



    This site rocks on so many levels.

  • Well said, Lance.



  • I'm not a blogger, but I am a Microsoft customer and developer. I have found the main dotnetweblogs.com feed invaluable since I discovered it near its inception.



    www.asp.net on the other hand is something that I have always considered to be an unwieldy collection of scary examples of asp.net use.



    In my humble opinion I believe what we have here is a failure by Telligent et all to come up with meaningful metrics for what constitutes a successful site that deserves resources. I imagine it is much easier to count the number of view state exploding examples of how to cripple your site with simple drag and drop techniques bundled into easy to download zip files then it is to count the number of community members here actually taking away usable information.

  • I am joining Frans Bouma on the fact that weblogs.asp.net is an important tool. To tell a short story, it's because someone in Redmond read my rant two years ago about the lack of community in Ireland on this blog, that I was approached very quickly by Microsoft Ireland to build a community. When I posted about the issues with the ASP.NET 2.0 migration tool this summer, I was contacted by Scott Guthrie himself to test a new version. So yes weblogs.asp.net is important and whatever the bandwidth Microsoft has to put in place, it's a priceless resources place for everybody. I am also please by the CS 2.0 migration, but I don't think we need more than a blog. If the idea is to get the forums and the blogs accessible from the same page, this would be a terrible mistake. The only real thing I need myself is a better control on the page content, and a better admin tool (stats for example). Also a way to have a next previous page on the main page like many blogs have now (Engadget for example).

  • I used to like weblogs.asp.net, but especially during the Presidential campaign, too many posters' politics began diluting the feed.



    That's when I lost focus on it.



    Then when I came back, there wasn't nearly so much actively new info coming from the MS people, and it seemed to be more of a more general community... loosely focused on developement



    And, with the alternate language posts, (which I could never understand why anybody would post German or Dutch into a very obviously English site), I always felt I was being left out of that poster's knowledge being presented because I didnt understand his language.



    And now that Microsoft and Telligent really don't know who's responsible for the blogs, it really shows. So what if Rob Howard still posts here... its been a while since that has even occurred.



    ...And to the bloggers still here at weblogs.asp.net, its definitely not a jab at any of you, its just an observation that I've made to it.

  • I definitely did not intend to come off as a hater, so don't take these posts that way.



    As a software developer, I guess I expect more. As a user of a service, I also expected more.



    I do believe the hearts of the developers are in the right place, I just question the ownership, leadership, priority, and overall mission of this website.



    This blogging forum has much more potential than is currently being exploited, and I would like to see that change.

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