This is the worst forum I have ever used (in 40 years!)

[JoeUser2004]

I have been contributing to "internet" forums since the BBS days (i.e. before the internet per se).

The organization of this forum is the worst I have ever seen.

I struggled to find this subforum in order to post a question (later).

At the very least, there should be an FAQ link at the top, and/or a link to a how-to file.

[#2]

@A1-A1  ....  My comment is unconstructive.  It was posted out of frustration.

If you delete your response, I might be able to delete the thread.

[#3]

@JoeUser2004 

"If you delete your response, I might be able to delete the thread."

Please do not propose this to other Members - as this is not in accordance with the MTC Code

Best regards 

[#4]

@A1-A1  wrote:  ``this [deleting the thread] is not in accordance with the MTC Code``

And where exactly is that "code" (forum rules).  That is an example of my complaint:  I cannot find these very basic elements of an online forum.  Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough (sigh).

Be that as it may, I suspect that you would also object to my "editing" the original posting by deleting its contents.  I'll leave "well-enough" (poor-enough? wink) alone.

[#5]

@JoeUser2004 

I think MTC Members are helpful, so I don't understand your frustration!

Please read, if you need to clarify something - please write.

Community Lounge - Microsoft Tech Community

(1) Code of Conduct - Microsoft Tech Community

Contributing to the Community - Microsoft Tech Community

Home Feed, Communities and Spaces - Microsoft Tech Community

[#6]

@A1-A1  .... Lounge > Code of Conduct

Ah, yes, there it is under "More Resource" on the right when I scroll down.  Again, counter-intuitive, IMHO.  That is my issue with this forum.

Oh well, enough said.  As I said, the original posting was just a frustrated "bleat".  I wish I had not posted it, in the first place.

Thanks for listening.

[#7]

Joe,

Thank you for your feedback, the community structure is complicated. We cover over one hundred Microsoft products and product areas and, while we have tried to keep the community simple to find the product you want to share your experience and knowledge on, the nature of such a large structure is it is a fight to keep it organized in a logical fashion.

Could we do better? Yes definitely and if you have specific thoughts around this, I would be happy to take them away.

Your feedback on getting access to an FAQ is a good one but real estate at the top of the community fold is at a bit of a premium. What we can, and should do, is put a link to the 'Getting Started' documentation in the welcome email users receive when they first sign up.

I will add that to our backlog.

Anyway, I hope you're not feeling as frustrated now and if there is anything we can do to help you please do not hesitate to comment here.

Allen Smith
Technical Lead
Microsoft Tech Community

[#8]

@JoeUser is correct.....this community is horribly confusing. There is no FAQ page anywhere on the Home page, and because that important piece of information is missing it's a real problem figuring out how to go about the basics, like making a post. As a new comer I'd like to know how to ask a question, and in the most appropriate thread for my topic. No where is that to be found. It's hard for me to fathom why the FAQ page wasn't made an integral part of the Home page on this website from DAY ONE. I simply shake my head in wonder.
I've been online for 23 years and have used community forums for technical questions an untold number of times during all these years and, believe me, this forum is definitely at the bottom of any I've ever been on. Someone has to take a good, hard look at what a new person sees when they come here, and, then, make some changes that will clarify, solely for new people, how to navigate this website. Folks who have been coming here for long periods know where everything is so they don't need instructions on how this community works, but new people, like myself, do.

[#9]

Mr Smith, with all due respect, those of us outside the business world don't rely on email like in years past. Used to be, the first thing I'd do when getting up in the am was check my email. Now days, the first thing I do is check my texts and voice mail. Also, that mention about "real estate being a premium" at the top of the page.....I'd settle for seeing a FAQ list ANYWHERE on the first page. Surely that's a possibility? Or is this an example of "being settled in one's ways?"

[#10]

Mr Smith.....as an addendum, I just looked at that "premium real estate" on the Home page, and it's your opinion, Upcoming Events is more important than indoctrinating a new member with a FAQ page?? Seriously?.....again, smh.....

[#11]

@SatelliteSue 

" @JoeUser is correct.....this community is horribly confusing. There is no FAQ page anywhere on the Home page, and because that important piece of information is missing it's a real problem figuring out how to go about the basics, like making a post."

Hello , This is a necessary discussion - thank you for your feedback.

I agree that it is difficult for new Members and I think Microsoft will fix it quickly!

[#12]

@SatelliteSue 

Thank you for taking time to join the discussion, I appreciate everyone's perspectives and always love to learn about problems anyone has encountered with the community. I would like to comment on some of the things you have mentioned.

• The Microsoft Tech Community focuses on the IT Pros, Devs and system administrators. As such we are working to deliver a community that works for people who work in these areas. As you rightly say outside businesspeople don't rely on emails that much but given the target audience for the Microsoft Tech Community it seems reasonable that we should add the getting started to our welcome emails. I appreciate you tend to user texts and voicemail, I have to say in my experience I have never found a community forum that uses these mediums for delivering welcome messages, in any market area, happy to be wrong.
  
  
• Could we put something on the homepage? Yes of course we could but it probably wouldn't make sense to keep it there forever so it would probably make sense to make it something that disappears after you achieve a certain rank.
  
  
• The primary navigation of the site takes you through the most common things you can engage with in the community, that is: Communities, Blogs, Events, Microsoft Learn, the community lounge and is already very busy across the screen sizes we support. Events are a very popular aspect of engagement on the Microsoft Tech Community.

In summary, we hear you on the onboard experience and we are working on a new experience which we will roll out during 2022, along with some other significant updates to the community.

I will however take away the feedback we have received here and see what we can do to make it easier between now and the new UI / UX being ready to ship.

You have provided some very serious and honest feedback, however I would also encourage you to avoid making comments about any community member being "stuck in their ways", as its not constructive or respectful.

I will of course update this thread as we make any changes that come about as a result of this feedback.

Allen Smith

Technical Lead

Microsoft Tech Community

[#13]

@A1-A1 

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I agree that it is difficult for new Members and I think Microsoft will fix it quickly!

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I like your optimism!

Microsoft is a monolithic giant with ponderous movement when it comes to listening to the community, except when it's 'vogue' or makes them money.

As for this community Joe, Andre and Sue are all correct.  I am a new user, attempting to report bugs or communicate issues with Microsoft products and have hit roadblock after roadblock while attempting to do so.  Microsoft seem to have closed off their old gateways to do this, which is fair enough, but surely they should have a replacement?

Firstly, there does not appear to be any definitive, easily recognisable method for doing so.  I have found two issues with SSMS that I am attempting to highlight to Microsoft, but there is no obvious wording anywhere that says: "REPORT BUGS HERE"

Secondly, on joining this site, I was presented with a confusing CMS with, as @SatelliteSue says, no help for the novice user.  Why not?  This site is less than intuitive and does not lend itself to finding your way around easily.

Thirdly, perhaps most importantly, I do not have the privilege to ask a question in the most obvious feed! WHY?? Get a grip - the idea behind a community is that people help each other, not hinder them!

So, I think what people may like to see (especially new users, like myself, @JoeUser2004, @SatelliteSue and @A1-A1), is either some kind of walk-through or introduction to the community, and further support on how the site structure works.  Site management could learn a lot by nipping off and having a look at StackOverflow.

Wow!  Sorry to be so grumpy on my first day!

[#14]

@Westie70 

Thank you - Great first post!

"  the idea behind a community is that people help each other, not hinder them!"

I would like to add that MTC is not Microsoft technical support - I want to emphasize this                          Welcome to Feedback (Preview) - Microsoft Tech Community

[#15]

@Westie70 

Thank you for taking time to provide additional feedback, I am sorry you have such a negative view of Microsoft's efforts to listen to the customer. While I agree we don't always get it right, many of our product teams put a significant amount of effort into collecting user feedback via multiple channels. Indeed, the teams are currently working through a project to focus feedback through the windows feedback hub that ships with Microsoft Windows and through the new feedback portal, partly because we recognize the benefit of putting this all-in-one place and partly to give us more streamlined ways to get that feedback in-front of the product groups.

For your first point, the vast majority of Microsoft products have a feedback interface built directly into them, i.e. in Edge its under the three dots top right >> Help and Feedback. We continue to work with Product teams in the Microsoft Tech Community to add links to their community to the appropriate experience for providing this feedback, however where this is not currently available then feedback can be provided via https://support.microsoft.com or https://answers.microsoft.com (which are the official support channels for Microsoft).

For your second point, we already acknolowleged earlier in this thread we could do better with onboarding, and indeed started a project to improve it, however with the site getting a complete overhaul later this year we had to put it on hold. Before you joined the community there was a getting started banner at the top, which links to the content here: Getting Started - Microsoft Tech Community which talks you through most of the common tasks you might choose to under take on the Microsoft Tech Community. All that said, we still agree we could do better and this will be one of the things we look at closely when we re-skin and update the underlying technology the Microsoft Tech Community is running on.

For your third point, its hard to comment on as you have not shared where you were trying to point and why that was the most obvious thread for you to comment on. There could be multiple reasons why that was not an option.

I hope this helps you feel a little less grumpy! and if not please feel free to comment below.

Allen Smith

Technical Lead

Microsoft Tech Community

[#16]

@Allen 

I'm sorry, but I do not believe in Microsoft's invasive attempts at CEIP - once again, they'd rather collect the data and use it to sell more products; I always disable Microsoft Store, and respective CEIPs in every product: My PC is my own, not Microsoft's, so it should be me deciding what they see, not them sneaking in the backdoor.  Thankfully, my organisation does block a lot of them as a matter of course.

I will admit that they are making through-roads with respect to .NET and similar.  The problem is, however, that they don't allow time for something to 'bed in', before it's replaced with the next greatest thing.  Surely getting security and structure right in current products would pay dividends for future ones?...  While .NET may be coming on, products such as Office have taken a massive backward step; I only use it because I have to ... for now.  Libre and OpenOffice are proving to be better products in a lot of respects.

As for the third point, for whatever reason, I can now post in the required hub, so my apologies for that.  Initially, however, I was greeted with a panel saying that I did not have appropriate privilege to do what I was doing, so I'll take it that this is down to a slight lag in updating my profile.

The site does need a nice big intelligent search box at the top, preferably using DuckDUckGo (a more agnostic search!), as Bing is a bit rubbish.

I have to say that, as soon as I am forced to move to Windows 11, that's it - I'm throwing in the towel and moving to Elementary.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, @Allen.

[#17]

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@A1-A1 wrote:

I would like to add that MTC is not Microsoft technical support - I want to emphasize this

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No - that's true, but not obvious.

[#18]

@Westie70 

Always happy to respond to feedback. The community search doesn't use bing either, as this is community is built on a third-party platform, we use their native search which is much more able to contextually understand the community content and its relationship to the structure of the community.

I wish you a pleasant day and I hope you will continue to provide feedback, as you continue to visit our community.

Allen Smith

Technical Lead

Microsoft Tech Community

[#19]

@Westie70 

When you are here, I do not think about Microsoft products - MTC is a community of IT people who share their knowledge and experience, it often helps to solve a technical problem (and this is what is Great) 

Feel free to get involved to help other users!

Good luck

[#20]

@A1-A1 - Thanks for the pointers, I appreciate it.