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I'm going to be talking to the Online Chat and Managed Newsgroup folks...

In about two weeks the PSS owners of the Online Chat and Managed Newsgroup system, and I'll be sitting down with them for a few hours to work out requirements for these benefits in the MSDN and TechNet subscription programs.  I have my own thoughts on the utility and functionality of these benefits, but if there are specific requests for "Community" benefits, please let me know and I'll see about driving them if it makes sense.  A few cautionary notes:

1.  I know that the "nospam" process for managed newsgroups sucks.  I hate it too, and this for me is a key issue, so the registration suckiness will be addressed in general, but I'm interested in specific feature requests for a newsgroup benefit.

2.  Questions not being answered is typically a problem with nospam alias, as in #1 above, so complaints will be slotted into that bucket

3.  Are there any other Community benefits besides Chat and Newsgroup that you'd like to see?  In the long term I'll want to move to a Forums-based system, but should there be a Community benefit in the subscription (MSDN or TechNet) beyond "Chat" and "Newsgroup/Forum".

Posted: Nov 18 2004, 10:04 AM by ntmatter | with 2 comment(s)

Comments

Richard said:

Forums/NNTP access/web forums

Please don't arrange a web forum so I can't access them through NNTP like the newsgroups. If you want password-protected newsgroups, to keep the great unwashed out so people don't need to use nospam aliases, then that's fine, but please don't make the forums web-only.

Please.

NNTP access makes the forums vastly more useable, as there are lots of really really good clients for NNTP.

It's not easy to create a good web-based front-end to newsgroups, but it can be done well, especially if you allow and encourage HTML posting in the newgroup.
# November 29, 2004 12:40 PM

Rob said:

I don't agree with you totaly Richard. There are good useable forums and less useable. Tek-Tips.com is one of the best forums around, a clear interface, ease to use, you can see all your posts with a few clicks. So an easy to use forum is always welcome!

A few things I like about forums is that you will learn to know the people around in your interrest area, what means a better chance for responses.
# December 9, 2004 8:14 AM
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