MSFT workers

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alvin Bruney
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Alvin Bruney

These guys answering posts with MSFT attached to their name, I make the
assumption that they are employees of microsoft. My question: Is this a free
time activity? Or are they getting paid by MS to monitor the newsgroups. I
have no beef with freeness, but some of the other groups can DEFINITELY need
your help. It would also be a good idea to spread the MSFT knowledge evenly
around the newsgroups - it looks like it is disproportionate - so that not
just the hottest groups like C# have MSFT help but some of the less well
known as well. Not griping, just observing.
 
Alvin,

If I had to guess, I would say that it depends on the product team and
their leader. Granted, there might be a mandate from on high to have
greater customer interactivity, but how the individual groups do it is
probably left to the manager of the group. Some product groups might have
said that they would appreciate their workers monitor the newsgroups, while
others might have taken a different approach.

For example, I have heard rumors about the Office team, how sheltered
they are. I can't imagine I would ever see someone from the Office team
answering newsgroup posts (then again, I could be wrong).
 
There are certain ngs that get monitored by MSDN folks for MSDN members.
That is part of the Universal subscription. When a member posts a question
on a supported ng, they *get an answer by MS. Other MS people also monitor
these ngs for fun or for work (not sure). I would agree that each product
group should have at least one person that monitors ng, and maybe they do.
You will also notice they keep a low profile unless a *valid question is not
answered, or is answered incorrectly. Moreover, the MVP community really
tries to help and you will see their posts in almost every MS ng . If an
MVP can not find the answer, they can reach out to others that will in many
cases. If you have other ideas for ng help from MS or MVPs, please send me
(or any MVP) your thoughts/ideas and we can forward to our lead. Posting
here would probably be OT unless your focus is on the c# ng. Cheers!
 
For example, I have heard rumors about the Office team, how sheltered
they are. I can't imagine I would ever see someone from the Office team
answering newsgroup posts (then again, I could be wrong).
Click to expand...

All the new team members should have to put in at least two months on ngs
:-)
 
Ya, I would think anyone on Product Support team should have to prove
themselves on the ng prior to taking on paid support tickets.

-Eric
 
you hit the nail right on the head. i was actually clamoring for more
support on the office components, because we could do with some help over
there.

--


-----------
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Nicholas Paldino said:
Alvin,

If I had to guess, I would say that it depends on the product team and
their leader. Granted, there might be a mandate from on high to have
greater customer interactivity, but how the individual groups do it is
probably left to the manager of the group. Some product groups might have
said that they would appreciate their workers monitor the newsgroups, while
others might have taken a different approach.

For example, I have heard rumors about the Office team, how sheltered
they are. I can't imagine I would ever see someone from the Office team
answering newsgroup posts (then again, I could be wrong).
Click to expand...
 
I get your point but at the same time, and I mean this constructively,
certain newsgroups lack this basic MVP protection. And yes MVP's are like
Jedi Knights. There only needs to be a pair to guard a newsgroup and
maintain the peace. I don't think its prudent to name the newsgroups at this
point, but I have a few examples where I myself have posted bugs, or needed
questions answered that went unanswered. I certainly don't mean that every
question should be answered but in one particular bug case, until I got a
lead team member's email via 'other means', they (and by extension, their
product department) were totally unaware that there were serious issues with
the product. I was able to send in 2 or 3 serious issues that needed
attention via this lead developer's email (which I keep close for such
occasions), when I think that, if someone internally were monitoring the
newsgroups, the problem would have been addressed/identified much earlier. I
must say in fairness that some upper level folk do monitor the newsgroups
but it certainly isn't consistent. I was surprised that bug reports did not
make it to product development so that they could address the issue. By show
of hands we probably have 10 MVP's in here plus about the same MSFT's plus
an equal number of high level developers monitoring this list, while other
newsgroups are starving.

--


-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
William Stacey said:
There are certain ngs that get monitored by MSDN folks for MSDN members.
That is part of the Universal subscription. When a member posts a question
on a supported ng, they *get an answer by MS. Other MS people also monitor
these ngs for fun or for work (not sure). I would agree that each product
group should have at least one person that monitors ng, and maybe they do.
You will also notice they keep a low profile unless a *valid question is not
answered, or is answered incorrectly. Moreover, the MVP community really
tries to help and you will see their posts in almost every MS ng . If an
MVP can not find the answer, they can reach out to others that will in many
cases. If you have other ideas for ng help from MS or MVPs, please send me
(or any MVP) your thoughts/ideas and we can forward to our lead. Posting
here would probably be OT unless your focus is on the c# ng. Cheers!
Click to expand...
 
I like the analogy to the Jedi Knights (no, I really am not that much of
a geek). Can I be Yoda?

Answer all my questions like this I can.

--
- Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]
- (e-mail address removed)

Alvin Bruney said:
I get your point but at the same time, and I mean this constructively,
certain newsgroups lack this basic MVP protection. And yes MVP's are like
Jedi Knights. There only needs to be a pair to guard a newsgroup and
maintain the peace. I don't think its prudent to name the newsgroups at this
point, but I have a few examples where I myself have posted bugs, or needed
questions answered that went unanswered. I certainly don't mean that every
question should be answered but in one particular bug case, until I got a
lead team member's email via 'other means', they (and by extension, their
product department) were totally unaware that there were serious issues with
the product. I was able to send in 2 or 3 serious issues that needed
attention via this lead developer's email (which I keep close for such
occasions), when I think that, if someone internally were monitoring the
newsgroups, the problem would have been addressed/identified much earlier. I
must say in fairness that some upper level folk do monitor the newsgroups
but it certainly isn't consistent. I was surprised that bug reports did not
make it to product development so that they could address the issue. By show
of hands we probably have 10 MVP's in here plus about the same MSFT's plus
an equal number of high level developers monitoring this list, while other
newsgroups are starving.

--


-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
William Stacey said:
There are certain ngs that get monitored by MSDN folks for MSDN members.
That is part of the Universal subscription. When a member posts a question
on a supported ng, they *get an answer by MS. Other MS people also monitor
these ngs for fun or for work (not sure). I would agree that each product
group should have at least one person that monitors ng, and maybe they do.
You will also notice they keep a low profile unless a *valid question is not
answered, or is answered incorrectly. Moreover, the MVP community really
tries to help and you will see their posts in almost every MS ng . If an
MVP can not find the answer, they can reach out to others that will in many
cases. If you have other ideas for ng help from MS or MVPs, please
Click to expand...
send
me
(or any MVP) your thoughts/ideas and we can forward to our lead. Posting
here would probably be OT unless your focus is on the c# ng. Cheers!

--
William Stacey, MVP

message news:[email protected]... a
free
Click to expand...
newsgroups.
Click to expand...
 
It's my impression that they are listening and they do take bug reports
seriously, but they don't want to publicly admit to them.

I've even posted reproducible demo projects that showed obvious memory
leaks - the MSFT CLR team member helping me dropped the thread cold.

I called in on a support ticket on a similar issue that's gone through 4
levels of support. It's fixed in a non-public hot fix for 1.0, but not fixed
in 1.1. Don't be afraid to call in, if you can prove it's there problem, it
shouldn't cost anything and you may get a few inside contacts out of it.

By the same token, there are documented bugs that have workarounds, that MS
opts not to discuss in KB articles and provides no 'official' workaround
for.

Hopefully this policy changes as they get out in front of this. Maybe by 2.0
they'll have it all under control.

-Eric
 
It is part of our job to spend time answering customer's questions, but
different teams have different levels of committment to it. Each newsgroup
should be handle by the team that's closest to it, and we try to share
groups like dotnet.general. I spend some time on other groups that are of
interest to me

If there's a group that you think doesn't have a good MS presence, or where
you've had a problem with the answer you've gotten, please feel free to send
me an email and I'll try to get the right thing to happen. It would help if
you could send me a detailed description.

(e-mail address removed)

--
Eric Gunnerson

Visit the C# product team at http://www.csharp.net
Eric's blog is at http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/ericgu/

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Really?! How do they know the poster is a universal subscriber? (I am and
haven't noticed any increased propensity for Microsoft to answer me.)

William Stacey said:
There are certain ngs that get monitored by MSDN folks for MSDN members.
That is part of the Universal subscription. When a member posts a question
on a supported ng, they *get an answer by MS.
Click to expand...

<snip>
 
Via the email address you used during registration. If not working for you,
send an email to the msdn subscriber service.
 
Daniel Billingsley said:
Wait a minute, does that mean the likes of Cowboy and Skeet will feel less
inclined to respond to me? That would be an unfortunate side effect. :)
Click to expand...

It certainly has no effect on me. I've no idea who's got an MSDN and
who hasn't.

The way to get me to answer a question is to make it interesting (and
provide a short but complete example program, of course). Sad but true
- while I'd dearly love to think of my time here as being spent
altruistic, the truth is if I weren't stimulated by it, I wouldn't
bother.

The other way to pretty much make sure I respond to a post is to claim
that C# passes objects my reference, of course!
 
Here's a link with more info on this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/newsgroups/managed/

From reading the description, you'll receive a response in 2 business days,
but it doesn't explicitly state that it'll be from a Microsoft employee.
It's been my experience that I'll get a response from someone in 2 days, but
not necessarily from Microsoft.


-Mike
 
Good observation Mike. So, officially, all Microsoft is obligated to do is
let your post sit there for two days and respond then if nobody else has.
 
That's been my experience as a Universal Subscriber. Of course, as someone
previously mentioned, you have to be registered (I am) to the managed
newsgroups for this support. (BTW, not all available MS newsgroups are
managed/monitored, either.)


-Mike
 
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