What Happened to Excel Developer's Forum

richlocus
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Posts: 149
Joined: 03 Oct 2015, 00:30

What Happened to Excel Developer's Forum

Post by richlocus »

Hello:

I used the Excel Developer's forum for years, and all my contributor points were on that forum. This was the URL: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forum ... m=exceldev. Hans always provided great answers. Why did they discontinue it? The new Questions and Answers forum is not structured in a manner that is easy to use. It was not an improvement.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Rich Locus

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HansV
Administrator
Posts: 78236
Joined: 16 Jan 2010, 00:14
Status: Microsoft MVP
Location: Wageningen, The Netherlands

Re: What Happened to Excel Developer's Forum

Post by HansV »

Hi,

Microsoft's ways are inscrutable. Many of the top users of the MSDN forums, including moderators, have complained that Q&A is worse than MSDN, but to no avail.
As a result, there is much less traffic on the new forums...

The Excel forum on Tech Community is better (one can finally attach workbooks and other files!), as is the Excel forum on Microsoft Community.
Best wishes,
Hans

richlocus
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Posts: 149
Joined: 03 Oct 2015, 00:30

Re: What Happened to Excel Developer's Forum

Post by richlocus »

Thanks! I think it was a bad move by Microsoft. Do you still have your 100,00 plus votes?
Rich Locus

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HansV
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Status: Microsoft MVP
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Re: What Happened to Excel Developer's Forum

Post by HansV »

The points won't be lost - the MSDN and Technet Forums still go on, but with the Office forums set to read-only...

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Best wishes,
Hans

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Doc.AElstein
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Re: What Happened to Excel Developer's Forum

Post by Doc.AElstein »

I have never figured out the structure of the so called “Microsoft Forums”. On the few posts I have, I have always saved the URL whenever I have visited or re found eventually one of the posts after a long search, so as to give myself half a chance to find the post again.
A very annoying phenomena is when a Thread gets closed or deleted for no obvious reason. In some cases I have struggled with a problem for months or years and finally solved it. I have then returned to a thread which I constantly hit in my attempts to find an answer, a Thread asking the same question which had no answer and /or many failed attempts at an answer, so as to give finally the answer for the benefit of others , only to find that the Thread has been closed for answers.
Another strange phenomena is to have a popular thread of mine with a good answer vanish without trace. Possibly that is just a rogue Moderator passing by that takes a strong dislike or a strong like to the answer? Most Moderators have done an amazing amount of good work in their time helping people, but a Moderator seems to be a job like the pope for life, which is possibly not always a healthy thing….

I think either some of Microsoft’s wiring is up the spout, ( or I am, or somebody thinks I am, yet another re incarnation that I don’t know about): I did a single post in one Microsoft forum using the only username I have in any Microsoft Forum, Doc.AElstein, and some time later my username changed on that post to “MigrationUser” with thousands of points and badges that had been apparently posting since 2008. In the mind I have running at the moment I remember that in 2008 I hadn’t got around yet to figuring out what a computer was, let alone a forum….

( Email notification of answers in any Threads I am in is very erratic and inconsistent, but then that is an increasing problem everywhere).

I have sometimes thought of asking somebody like Hans to give us a summary and overview of the things that come under the umbrella of “the Microsoft Forums”, but I thought better of it…

Currently I am still finding a few old posts of mine, and the final URL has at the start something like
social.technet.microsoft
or
answers.microsoft
or
social.msdn.microsoft.
I don’t know where those 3 fit into the larger picture of things, if there is one, currently. They all go to a forum that looks a bit different. i don't think they are all the same forum. But I am not sure.


Alan
( at least I am fairly sure that’s who I really am just now… :) )
I am having difficulty logging in with this account just now.
You can find me at DocAElstein also