But, there are always going to be exclusive groups that
have access to information or experiences that the
masses don't have.
I went to Steve Wozniak's superbowl party. Attending was
everyone important to Woz. Folks who designed the Macs.
etc.
Do I see those kinds of things opening up to the masses?
No.
And, yes, it's about scalability. I can only help so
many people. So, I help out the ones who have shown that
they are willing to help others. Why? Because that
scales my own efforts out further than would otherwise
happen.
Robert. What would happen if all the MVPs took your
advice and decided they would rather spend their time
only in the private lists rather than in the public ones
since they "scale best" over there?
who would help eveyone else? I'm not asking for an
invitation to a party (though it was pretty slick how
you managed to namedrop even here), I'm looking for
access to information that would help both me and MS
attain our goals.
Roy: If MVPs stop helping the public, then they won't be
MVPs for long. That's WHY they're appointed MVPs. The
idea is that the MVPs provide assistance to the public,
via Web sites, mailing lists, newsgroups, etc., saving
Microsoft money on additional tech support personnel.
Microsoft, in turn, provides the MVPs with access to
"inside" information and resources,
which the MVPs are supposed to use to better assist the
public. Ideally, everybody wins.
Yes, There is a lot of stuff that non MVPs should not be
exposed to (personal ties with MS, products and alphas
and so on) but this is not what I'm talking about. I'm
talking about wny info that would be considered a good a
valid post on a public NG. And there's lots of it out
there.
Robert: If "signal to noise" is the
only issue then why not make this super-secret MVP-only
information read only to the general public and
read-write for the inner circle? Presumabley security is
not an issues since MVPs (presumably) already have to
authenticate themselves to participate anyway. IMHO
there is a lifetime of good information on the internet,
and plenty of smart people writing about stuff that are
NOT MVPs, so it doesn't bother me a great deal either
way.
Phil: agreed. However, consider this: if the information
(or the non secret stuff) that MS is sharing with the
MVPs is then being shared with users anyway(but who
knows if it really does. Maybe no one will ask the right
question..) wouldn't it be grand if I could search that
information as well?
Here's an idea: make a public readonly searchable
archive of the "noisless" newsgroups.
This way the MVPs still get the no noise, but everyone
can share the knowledge. Does that make any sense? makes
better sense to me than the current situation.
Heh. Joseph, you read my mind :)
Unfortunately Joseph that is not the case. A lot of
NDA-type discussions happen there. We get information on
things that are months and years down the pipe.\
Remember guys that .NET is still young. The resources
are coming into play, you guys just might not know about
it yet.
Robert (M.) hmm. That's too bad. Even the aspAdvice
lists? Still, I bet like 50% of the conversation would
be considered totally legit for public consumption.
Which is a shame IMHO.
> Wouldn't it be grand if I could search that
information as well?
Roy: You can: Google. ;-) Most MVPs are authors or have
blogs. They make their living by sharing what they know.
I can't think of any non-NDA information available to
MVPs that's not also readily available on the Web.
'Scuse me while I get my waders on. It's getting pretty
deep in here. The fact that Microsoft provides a couple
of preferred support avenues (paid MSDN newsgroups,
private MVP discussions) has nothing to do with
scalability. It has to do with the fact that Microsoft
used to provide free support to developers and it cost
them too much money. This was way way back - say, Access
2.0 days. You used to be able to log on to CompuServe
and get answers to all of your Access questions, not
just from the original MVPs, but from a dozen or so
dedicated PSS personnel.
Unfortunately, this was not an economically sustainable
model. PSS costs were skyrocketing faster than obscene
profits. So, PSS had to find some way to rework its
economic model. Hence, no free support for everyone.
And the most brilliant move of this was to discover that
people would become Microsoft's unpaid support army if
you just gave them access to the inside scoop and let
them see Bill G. in person once a year.
Phil: so if all this information is accessible via
google why have these private newsgroups at all? I bet
they are not just used for NDA stuff. Maybe, MAYBE some
of the MS ones, but the ASPAdvice ones?
I'm sorry Roy but I think you are off here.
The private lists that Jason is referring to rarely talk
about things related to .NET (they talk about all kinds
of things ranging from funny joke emails to who has the
best hardware configuration). There are folks on those
lists that encourage the development related discussions
be moved to the public lists. Also, any information that
is .NET related is often discussed in parallel by most
of the same people in public lists (i.e. the person with
the question asks on both lists). Finally, the great
information on those threads is not hoarded - quite the
opposite, the folks on those lists are the people who
are answering all of the questions on the public lists
so the knowledge is napsterized.
As for the private MVP information, you obviously don't
understand the MVP program. The idea is that the MVPs
have access to the private information because it a)
encourages them to continue to answer thousands of
questions and b) it ensures that they have the most
accurate information when answering those thousands of
questions. You don't know what it takes to run the MVP
program so you cannot say that it is a simple as opening
it up to everyone. Before I took my job with Microsoft,
I was an MVP and was in those private groups. 95% of the
discsussions those groups are either a) worthless to
most people because they are of the recreation variety
or b) folks conferring about a question on a public
newsgroup.
As for the paid support, customers want an affordable
support venue. The newsgroups give us a viable support
offering for customers. As a shareholder, I want
Microsoft to do what makes sense economically and what
serves the customer. I think offering paid support via
the "special" newsgroups is a great
way to do that.
Alex: Thanks for the useful input. I think me and many
others don't understand fully how the MVP program works,
but reading what jason wrote really made me think this
was unfair. Reading all these inputs all you guys have
put in makes me rethink my position on this. That's for
the MVP groups.
As for the paid newsgroups, I understand the economics
of it, but I find it hard to accept for the same reasons
I've stated above. Maybe it's just the purist in me but
I hate to pay for something Microsoft has a vested
interest in just as much as I do if not more. Guess I'll
have to learn to live with it, but I don't have to like
it :)
> Why have these private newsgroups at all?
I can't comment on ASPAdvice, I don't subscribe and know
very little about it. The private MS groups really do
contain a significant amount of NDA info. They're also a
"third place," like a private club,
where MVPs and MS representatives can "hang
out" without having to deal with the public and
always behave professionally.
So according to Alex the signal to noise on the private
lists is not that great either.....
Sorry all...didn't mean to imply that the private lists
were MVP-only things...there are actually several people
in there without such status.
As an MVP for the past three years, I'll back up what
Alex said: Most of the "private"
microsoft lists (*not* ASPAdvice) have either nothing do
to with technology or they contain conversations that
stray in and out of NDA material -- you can't make that
searchable (even in a read-only fasion).
I've never even heard of these
"special" ASPAdvice lists, so I can't
comment on what they are.
And if you're hearing stuff like "heard it in
an internal group", than that person is talking
too much. Most likely, thet got access to such an
"internal group" because they signed
an NDA and agreed not to talk about that stuff. I've
heard that people have been booted out of the MVP
program for disclosing NDA information. Microsoft
doesn't take that lightly.
In my last Job, I had access to the private (but not
MVP) newsgroups ( I probably have access here too).
I was given instructions that said I must use my
"real" work email, so I did.
I posted a couple questions and guess what I got...
spam, lots of spam.
I spend a lot of time on aspmessageboard , I answer
questions about asp.Net, a lot of questions.
Most of them are simple, and require more typing than
thinking.
People ask the same questions again and again, it would
be nice to able to link to definitive answers on
official newsgroups than linking back to my own posts.
That is why I prefer open technologies and open (not to
be confused with shared) source whenever possible. There
is none of that elistism and information hoarding. As
long as an open project is well-maintained, you can
share in the wealth of information.
Microsoft still doesn't get this completely, and until
they do, I think are missing out on potential mindshare
and marketshare.
Roy: spot on.
Alex: I've written a blog after reading your post. I
think Microsoft in general doesn't understand what
support really means. It doesn't mean releasing docs or
examples. It also means that you understand what the
quality of the product you sold to those developers
really is, and if there are bugs, you should patch them
and supply the developers, who are customers!, with that
patch, a.s.a.p.
Microsoft doesnt' do that. It doesn't release patches
for vs.net nor .NET. Why? Because we, developers, then
are more eager to buy the next version? If that's not
the reason what is?
Regardless of who is qualified to PARTICIPATE in a
discussion, I think everyone is ENTITLED to READ those
discussions. It's precisely the policy I've used in
non-developer forums that I've run, and it benefits
everyone while maintaining quality. Granted, some of
that has to do with moderating such
"open" forums, but people in certain
circles hate to be moderated.
I'd also like to point out that I forgot to mention that
the content to which I was referring in my original
thread wasn't exactly MS development-specific, but
technical in consumer products, like plasma TVs and
such. It's interesting to see people talk about things
other than programming and have insight on them...but at
the same time, they're conversations I'm sure the vast
majority of people would ratrher do without.
In a ideal world all information is free, but in this
real world there is such thing as NDA.
Private MVP newsgroups are not about user support. They
are for discussing MVP deals and NDAed stuff. It's too
naive to think they could be open.
YAH ROY!!!!
Information should be free!!!!
Give us your credit card number! And your billing
address. Oh, and don't forget your mothers maiden
name....
"Can it even make them available to higher
level developers who are fairly skilled? NO. They rely
on RDs, MVPs, and people like us to pass on that
information to others as necessary. "
Not exactly, at least with regard to MVPs. They rely on
people like us to pass the information along. Now, if
people like us do pass information along, and help other
people, then people like us become recipients of the MVP
award. But, after that, we aren't relied upon as MVPs,
we are still relied upon as people like us. If we stop
doing it, we're still an MVP... at least for the year of
the award. If we stop sharing information, then we
aren't worthy of being an mvp. It's not about MVP, it's
about community, and sharing information within the
community. MVP is just the award we get for doing it. It
should neither be a prod to make us do it, nor should it
be the reason we want to do it. We want to do it because
we *want* to do it. We want to help. We want to share
information, we want other people to be smart too.
You couldn't be more wrong about the MVP program etc.
First, most MVPs really aren't given access to as much
private information as you think. Those private training
sessions and newsgroups you mention mostly discuss
publicly available information. You want to be invited
to one of the private training sessions? When's the last
time you or your affiliated organizations invited the
general public to one of your training sessions? Can you
imagine what would happen if you did?
Second, MVPs are chosen specifically because of the
volume and quality of information they disseminate to
the general public... no information hording going on
there.
Third, you seem to be objecting to the existence of
Microsoft fee-based support for developers. Of course
support has to be fee-based. Anything else would be
absurd. The term "developers" covers a
wide range of people of varying skill. If Microsoft
provided free support for all of them, the quality and
response times of the support would be awful, and you'd
never use it. In most cases the support consists of
people who have read the publicly available
documentation, so the fee is an "I didn't
RTFM" fee. If you don't like fee-based support,
you can use the free newsgroups, where you'll almost
always receive an answer, whether there's a guarantee or
not. Where's the problem? You take your chances with
free support, or if you need better support, you kick in
a donation to cover the salaries of the people that are
helping you.
You can feel free to point out other companies who are
doing tech support or information sharing cheaper and
better than Microsoft, if there are any. Microsoft takes
the knowledge base used by MS fee support technicians
and put it on the web for free in their knowledgebase.
Compare companies like, say, Checkpoint, where you have
to pay a yearly fee to even search the knowledge base
web page or get bug fixes, or other companies that don't
even provide a free newsgroup, let alone spend money
identifying and encouraging the more helpful volunteers
to keep coming back.
Eric. Thanks for the ....spam?
It's hard to disprove any of the comments in the article
without allowing the author unfettered access to the
private groups complained about, so I won't bother
trying. Most of the comments appear as "sour
grapes" anyway. There's a club to which the
author doesn't belong, so there must be something
secretive and sinister in its very existence.
But there's also a measure of truth in the article.
There *are* pieces of information discussed in the
private groups which may be applicable to public
disclosure. Eventually, the relevant technical bits and
pieces are disclosed, but the general
"chatter" never is. And while it's not
covered by NDA, it isn't really relevant to the general
public either.
Some of the information in the groups and mailing lists
is clearly covered by NDA. I'm sorry, but I signed the
NDA and I won't be passing the info along. Even if it
happens to leak out somewhere else. Some of the
information may be borderline, such as technical
discussions about upcoming patches or security fixes.
Controlled releases of this information is appropriate.
Some information is discussed in the private groups
simply because of the noise ratio. These groups allow
MVP's access to Microsoft insiders, and we take
difficult problems to the developers as appropriate, and
when the discussion is complete we post the fixes or
work arounds for the public. The general public doesn't
belong in the discussion, but they aren't denied the
needed information either.
But let's face it, we are an exclusive group. We got in
by providing accurate help for various Microsoft
technologies in a public forum, and in return we have
been granted priveleged access to Microsoft resources.
The general public can pay for such access, we earned it
through our prior actions. There are perks for being in
this club, and responsibilities as well. Outsiders will
always have an opinion of us which varies from the
truth. Some of the outsiders will bash the program due
to their opinions. Most will accept the situation and be
grateful that it eventually results in a resolution of
their technical issues. A few will eventually be invited
to join the ranks of the MVP.
The MVP's I personally know aren't in it for the perks,
or exclusive access. In fact, if there were no MVP
program at all, we'd still be out there helping people
solve their problems. We'd just have more limited
resources at our disposal to do so.
Jeff Cochran
Windows Server - IIS MVP
Roy,
I've been involved a bit with some internal discussions
related to this, and I'd like to share my perspective.
Note that it's *my* perspective, and not necessarily the
official MS line (if, in fact, such a line exists...)
There are really three classes of discussion you are
talking about. There are internal MS aliases, there are
private newsgroups for people with support contracts,
and there are private MVP newsgroups.
The internal MS aliases do have some information that is
of general interest, and in the ideal world, many of
those discussions could be in a more public forum. The
hard part is separating the stuff that could be public
from the stuff that shouldn't be public, because of IP
concerns, or because it's not presented in a way that we
would like to have public (the way we talk internally is
sometimes not clear enough or nice enough). We do have
to figure out a way to fix this, because the internal
aliases tend to take "expert time"
that we should be spending where everybody can benefit.
I should note, however, that some of the things showing
up on external blogs are not coming from our established
aliases, but from smaller discussions, either in email
or in person, so at least in that case, we're getting
some unique information out. But not well enough, yet.
The private newsgroups for people with support contracts
is there for customers who want a guarantee that their
concerns are addressed. While I think we should improve
our free support, the resources required for a
guaranteed response currently mean that we have to
charge for it.
As for discussions with the MVPs, some of the thing we
talk with MVPs about are NDA topics, and others are MVPs
learning from each other.
I understand your frustration at not having a place to
turn if you can't figure something out through the usual
channels, and that is something we're working on.