Hi, Steve. I about 'live' in web forums, but the problem seems to me
that MS tried merging all the forums into one dynamic interface, where
the needs of individual programs are not met. Now, for example, if I
want to see just the Excel programming group, I have to sift through
posts for VBA topics for ALL of the Office programs.
Also, when asking a question, I fill out the fields and then I don't
see my question show up. For example, I post to the Office
Customization group for Excel using version 2010 and fill out the
fields accordingly. The question does not show up in the listing
unless I specify Office 2010 in the view. Using Show All, it does not
appear. Why is that? Does that mean readers have to scan each version
individually to read posts? That seems inefficient.
We had our challenges in Usenet, but at least we had separate groups
to address discuss specific areas, and when we posted it appeared
immediately. It seems to me we had A LOT more conversations going on
back then in all of the groups. One question would get several replies
from people and threads often would extend into long explorations into
a subject. Now it seems there's not as much activity and only cursory
interaction. As an owner and moderator of other discussion groups, I
agree that they need more control than Usenet could furnish, but once
they become overly-categorized, under-segmented, unnecessarily
complicated, and slow to list threads, the communication is impeded
and then people begin to drop out. It's too bad because this is a
highly-valued forum of assistance.
I would love to see a better forum created even if MVP's pooled
together and created one. I'm sure they could do a better job. To me
the main mark of success of a forum is in its volume of users' (on
topic) activity. I just don't see the same level of activity as we
used to have in Usenet. Do you?
-Mel
