Forum Discussion
concern about quality of responses in discussions
Totally agree about MVPs.
Maybe not all, but most of them are after getting "best responses", they want to accumulate as many of them as they can, and the worst thing? they can mark their own answer as "Best response", while other users like me and you can't. (so, don't trust the number of best responses you see on MVPs' profiles)
in Microsoft Tech Community, the OP, Microsoft Employees and MVPs can mark any comment as "best response". MVPs should be removed from that list.
also being an MVP doesn't mean, in any shape or form, that you are more knowledgeable or valuable than the others. just because you don't personally know the right Microsoft Employee to nominate you, or don't care about it, doesn't mean you are less valuable and knowledgeable.
in MTC website, they have to use Ajax more often and eliminate the need for full page refreshes and redirects substantially.
MVP:s, as all of us, are different. If some ask for "best response" that doesn't mean that is since "best response" helps them to support MVP status. Not at all. Being mostly on Excel community I don't see that MVP:s on it ask for "best response", that's mostly people without that status. I don't like such additions to every post, that's kind of spam, but my point here that doesn't depend on you are MVP or not, that's personality. MVP status doesn't motivate for such behavior.
MVP:s are not more knowledgeable than other Pro:s - yes, of course. Even Microsoft employees are not more knowledgeable than other Pro:s if the question is outside of their direct responsibilities. The only difference is that Microsoft employees and MVP:s are usually more informed, more exactly they have more sources of information than other Pro:s.
Back to "best response". Technically I don't see any value in them. But we are here on Microsoft territory, if having them is important from SEO and other points of view, let they be. If Microsoft defines the rules who may manually correct such responses, why shall we care? Except employees on other forums these are moderators (who are not necessary an employees), here are MVP:s, I see no difference. Doesn't matter which rules are defined, that always be the mistakes and unpropped use of the rules by some individuals. If something is wrong I'd start to communicate concrete cases rather than entire system. Will we exclude MVP:s or Microsoft employees from these and these departments nothing changes, just administration of MTC becomes more complex.
I didn't say MVPs ask for best response, I'm saying that they don't need to. they have the ability to set their own answer as best response, that's the main problem.
even on StackExchange websites where things are more technical, it's still up to the user to decide which answer he/she/they receive is best. no one in there, comes and marks a post as answer for you.
and when I say "they" and "StackExchange", I'm not talking about a regular website, it's almost a hundred Q&A websites with Millions of users and posts.
they clearly have no problem with SEO, they appear in search results a lot more than Tech community, that's for sure. so it has nothing to do with SEO.
Even if SEO had a small impact, it would be a mistake in MTC's design and software that relies on such behavior, in which case, they should allow everyone to mark a post as best response (preferably by peer reviewing and voting). if it's good, let everyone do it.
Nope, I've never seen any regular member keep asking for people to mark his/her/their comment as best response, and most people in MTC that have the most "Best responses", are MVPs, just because they can mark their own comment as best response, nothing else.
and don't tell me that it's Microsoft's website and we should stay silent and don't say anything. you might not want to say anything because it's working in your favor.
and if you believe Microsoft works that way then you're wrong, because they take user feedback seriously.
"Best responses" have values for MVPs and help them, when Microsoft asks you to offer proof of work, your contributions on forums etc, if you show the fake "best responses", it has benefits in their decision to elect/re-elect you for MVP.
*these are official from Microsoft's website.
It looks like we have different experience. I could only share my one:
- being MVP I never marked my own response as "best" one and never seen on Excel community here any other MVP:s did that;
- being MVP I report my activities to Microsoft, but never mentioned how many best responses and / or likes I had, that's not required and that affects nothing
However, I suspect Microsoft keeps it's own stats which they take into account and which is behind the scene, but I know nothing about that and actually don't care.
Who has rights to mark best answers - again, I see no difference if it'll be Microsoft employee, MVP or whoever else. Best answer technically means nothing. If we need to have them, more the better, what's the difference who will do that? If any random answer will be marked as "best" I don't care.
Honestly, I'm not sure what is the root of this discussion, is that against MVP institute as it is, or against concrete MVP:s behavior, or against Microsoft employees / MVP:s intervention into discussion on this resource. If the latest actually I don't see the difference between Microsoft employees and MVP:s if except the team which runs this resource.
