Mapping of this group to MS forums

  • Thread starter Thread starter MikeB
  • Start date Start date
Q. "I assume this Newsgroup mirrors one of the MS support forums?"

A. No. Microsoft forums are not mapped to the public newsgroups.
 
Then why do I see things like "please click on the rep icon if I've
been of any help" on newsgroup posts?
 
MikeB said:
I assume this Newsgroup mirrors one of the MS support forums? If so,
can anyone point me to the relevant one? There doesn't seem to be a
1-1 correspondence between the newsgroup hirarchy and hte forums I can
see at http://www.microsoft.com/communities/forums/default.mspx
Click to expand...

Microsoft has web forums which are separate from these Usenet newsgroups.
The newsgroups have a web interface (pretty dreadful) which you can access
here:

From the web - http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-
us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.[name of group]

This particular newsgroup is microsoft.public.windows.vista.general

http://aumha.org/nntp.htm - list of MS newsgroups

The Vista web forums are here:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/categories

Malke
 
Because these posts are coming from third-party web sites that leech the
content from the Microsoft NNTP servers. There is no "rep icon" or "scales"
on any of the Microsoft forums.
 
Hi, Mike.
I assume this Newsgroup mirrors one of the MS support forums?
Click to expand...

Your assumption is backwards.

These started out as Usenet newsgroups many years ago, kind of a new version
of the BBSes and CompuServe forums that had already existed for a decade or
more. Then Microsoft created a web-based interface so that users -
especially newbies who were not familiar with newsgroups - could read and
respond with their browser - Internet Explorer or a 3rd-part application.
When accessed via the web, these newsgroups are called Microsoft Communities
or discussion groups - and now the term "forums" is becoming common. But
they are still, under the skin, Usenet newsgroups and that is the most
natural way to access them.

Then Microsoft added "bells and whistles" to the Communities, such as the
"rep icon" you mention in your later post.

Since these are, in fact, Usenet newsgroups, they are freely accessible to
the millions (?) of News Servers around the world. Those other news servers
can "slurp" messages from here and relay any responses back and forth (often
resulting in replies that are out of sequence or delayed - or simply lost).
Some entrepreneurs have created their own "forums", which also leach posts
from here and present them as their own content. You will often see posts
here with taglines mentioning TechArena or mx-forums (or Google groups,
which you used) or other such non-Microsoft hosts. They typically require
their "members" to create a name and password and to log on before they can
post to the "forum". The forum managers then simply relay the question to
these newsgroups and relay any reply back to the "forum"; the forum user
thinks that the reply is "inside information" available exclusively to
"members" of the "forum" - and often does not even realize that his post has
been relayed around the world and that the "answer" to his question came
from here. The forum owner, while typically providing little or no content
himself, generates revenue for himself by posting ads on his "forum" - for a
fee. This has become so lucrative that "forums" are popping up all over -
including those under Microsoft's umbrella. Soon, our beloved FREE
newsgroups may become only a cherished memory. :>(

Sorry for the long answer to a short question, Mike. The full answer would
be much longer, but I'll quit here.

Which came first, the newsgroup or the forum? In this case, the answer is
clear: the newsgroups came first.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
 
Hi, Mike.


Your assumption is backwards.

These started out as Usenet newsgroups many years ago, kind of a new version
of the BBSes and CompuServe forums that had already existed for a decade or
more.  Then Microsoft created a web-based interface so that users -
especially newbies who were not familiar with newsgroups - could read and
respond with their browser - Internet Explorer or a 3rd-part application.
When accessed via the web, these newsgroups are called Microsoft Communities
or discussion groups - and now the term "forums" is becoming common.  But
they are still, under the skin, Usenet newsgroups and that is the most
natural way to access them.

Then Microsoft added "bells and whistles" to the Communities, such as the
"rep icon" you mention in your later post.

Since these are, in fact, Usenet newsgroups, they are freely accessible to
the millions (?) of News Servers around the world.  Those other news servers
can "slurp" messages from here and relay any responses back and forth (often
resulting in replies that are out of sequence or delayed - or simply lost).
Some entrepreneurs have created their own "forums", which also leach posts
from here and present them as their own content.  You will often see posts
here with taglines mentioning TechArena or mx-forums (or Google groups,
which you used) or other such non-Microsoft hosts.  They typically require
their "members" to create a name and password and to log on before they can
post to the "forum".  The forum managers then simply relay the questionto
these newsgroups and relay any reply back to the "forum"; the forum user
thinks that the reply is "inside information" available exclusively to
"members" of the "forum" - and often does not even realize that his post has
been relayed around the world and that the "answer" to his question came
from here.  The forum owner, while typically providing little or no content
himself, generates revenue for himself by posting ads on his "forum" - for a
fee.  This has become so lucrative that "forums" are popping up all over -
including those under Microsoft's umbrella.  Soon, our beloved FREE
newsgroups may become only a cherished memory.  :>(

Sorry for the long answer to a short question, Mike.  The full answer would
be much longer, but I'll quit here.

Which came first, the newsgroup or the forum?  In this case, the answeris
clear:  the newsgroups came first.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
Click to expand...

Hi Bob!
Nice to see you here as well as in the Quicken group.

I am aware that newsgroups existed since the early days of the
Internet, in fact, from before the revolution that the http protocol
brought about. I'm also aware of the later development of forums (or
fora) in their various guises.

Using forums (and end-users) as a means of technical support post-
dates both these inventions. I assumed, mistakenly, that MS
implemented forums first and then somehow created an interface to a
newsgroup server. My mistake.
 
MikeB said:
Using forums (and end-users) as a means of technical support post-
dates both these inventions. I assumed, mistakenly, that MS
implemented forums first and then somehow created an interface to a
newsgroup server. My mistake.
Click to expand...

In the old days, on the MS support pages, the NNTP link for the product
newsgroup was the first link given, on top of the web interface, so most
people clicked on the NNTP link.
Sometime in the last few years MS decided to reverse that, and now the web
interface link is the first one. A retrograde step I say...
 
R. C. White said:
Hi, Mike.


Your assumption is backwards.

These started out as Usenet newsgroups many years ago, kind of a new version
of the BBSes and CompuServe forums that had already existed for a decade or
more.
Click to expand...

Umm...according to Wikipedia, Usenet began in 1979. It was started by
a couple of Duke university students who were intrigued by Internet
mailing lists, but very few places had Internet access at that time.
They developed a system that used phone links to exchange information
with UNC.

I think that predates Compuserv forums, but I think BBSs were around
at that time.
 
Hi, Tim.

Thanks for chiming in. ;<) My memory is only as good as my experience, and
I didn't hear about Usenet until sometime in the 1990s, I think.

I got my first computer - the original TRS-80 - in December 1977. The next
year was busy: 1978 saw Level II BASIC (my local Radio Shack manager
thought that I should be impressed that it was Micro-Soft BASIC), my first
printer, TRS-DOS and my first floppy disk drive (5 1/4") - and my first
modem, 300 baud acoustic with mouse-ears. By 1979 I had subscribed to
CompuServe, even though long-distance charges were horrendous because there
was no local phone number. I'm not sure when I started using BBSes,
including the Radio Shack BBS, but it must have been about 1980, and I still
used them extensively in the early 1990s. And, while I used CompuServe a
lot, I don't recall when their "forums" started. I do remember my first
CD-ROM drive in about 1989, and using BBSes and forums to try to learn how
to use that new technology. (They asked, "Why does a CPA need a CD-ROM?"
At that time, CDs were only for games, encyclopedias and entertainment; they
had not seen my tax library on disk, updated every 3 months - and each
quarter I had to mail back the previous disk!)

In 1993, I took a computer class at the local university after we moved to
San Marcos. That's when I heard about Gopher and Bitnet and some new thing
called the Internet - and that might also have been when I first heard about
Usenet. But still there was no local phone number, so access was very
expensive. My ISP (Netcom) might charge only $20 per month, but it was not
local, so 100 minutes online might run up $700 in phone charges! Some local
business - I never found out who - let the GEnie network use their phone
lines at night and on weekends for only $2 per minute, so that cut the cost
to maybe $200 + $20 per month. We used Aladdin for GEnie; other names along
the long road to the Internet included Delphi, The Source, AOL (of course -
I was a Charter Subscriber), Pegasus, Eudora, Lexis/Nexis, Mosaic and
Netscape and others that I'll remember later.

Finally, in 1995, a local college guy brought the Internet to San Marcos!
For the first time, I had a local phone number and, since I was retired by
then, I could spend lots of time online. I think that's when I first
learned about newsgroups. So that's why I thought BBSes and CompuServe came
first, I suppose.

Binging and Googling for "usenet" gets interesting results. That Wikipedia
article you cited is there, of course. A couple of hits down is a very
interesting FAQ, apparently written before 1993 and last updated in 1998:
"What is Usenet?", http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/ . The
first couple of sections are, "AN APPROXIMATE DESCRIPTION" and "WHY IS
USENET SO HARD TO DEFINE?" This is a very readable and very informative
article!


To MikeB, the OP of this thread. Sorry to take it so far afield with my
personal reminiscences, but maybe it helps to put Microsoft Communities into
perspective. I don't know if Usenet predated CompuServe forums, but I'm
sure that Microsoft newsgroups predated Microsoft Communities. The Quicken
newsgroup is one of many where I've been a "regular" over the past decade or
more. (And you guessed right; Mom and Dad named me Robert Charles and they
called me "R. C." from the beginning; lately I've gotten lazy and used just
"RC".)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
 
R. C. White said:
In 1993, I took a computer class at the local university after we moved to
San Marcos.
Click to expand...

I know San Marcos. I lived in San Antonio for a few years and
graduated from UT, just up I35 from you. I've still got lots of family
in SA. And I've had the pleasure of tubing the San Marcos river.
That's when I heard about Gopher and Bitnet and some new thing
called the Internet - and that might also have been when I first heard about
Usenet.
Click to expand...

I remember Gopher. That was University of Minnesota's (the Golden
Gophers) attempt to organize the Internet. You could navigate through
a series of menus, each menu item could point to a document on the
same or a different computer, or another menu on the same or a
different machine. It never got off the ground because the Web - http
and html - completely eclipsed it. It was kind of like the WWW
stripped down to just the links.
But still there was no local phone number, so access was very
expensive. My ISP (Netcom)
Click to expand...

I was a Netcommie too.
Binging and Googling for "usenet" gets interesting results. That Wikipedia
article you cited is there, of course. A couple of hits down is a very
interesting FAQ, apparently written before 1993 and last updated in 1998:
"What is Usenet?", http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/ . The
first couple of sections are, "AN APPROXIMATE DESCRIPTION" and "WHY IS
USENET SO HARD TO DEFINE?"
Click to expand...

There are probably as many definitions as there are people that use
it. Like the blind men and the elephant. Thanks for the pointer, I'll
read that FAQ.
 
Hi, Tim.

Yes, I've seen your posts online in many places for several years. I wonder
how we've missed meeting at MVP Summits.

My son got is CIS degree from SWTSU in 1999 (just before it became TSU-SM)
and now works as a database programmer for UT's OTIS (Office of Technology
and Information Services) in downtown Austin.
Like the blind men and the elephant. Thanks for the pointer, I'll
read that FAQ.
Click to expand...

You'll see the "blind men" analogy there. ;<)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
 
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