Extending the functionality of Word references/bibliography

[Beau]

Myself and many other researchers and academics worldwide would very much
like to see the functionality of Word 2007's References function extended to
the point where we could dispense with third party citation software such as
EndNote and the like. This could be accomplished by adding the following
features to the Word References ribbon:

1) CUSTOM STYLES. Add an easy, intuitive way to create custom citation and
reference styles. Upon opening the styles drop-down menu I should see entries
at the bottom entitled “More…†and “Custom…â€. Upon clicking “More…†I should
be taken to a Microsoft website which has a very large list of (user
contributed?) citation/reference styles from different publications and
journals which are freely available for download. When I download a style it
should automatically be added to the Styles drop-down menu in Word. Upon
clicking “Custom…†I should be presented with a new interface which enables
me to define completely (down to the last period and space) a custom style,
which can be saved and optionally uploaded to Microsoft’s server for
retrieval by other users.

2) DATABASE CONNECTION. A button should added to the References ribbon
which, when clicked, opens a new interface which enables me to seamlessly
connect to one of a number of (both preset and user-definable) databases
(e.g., PubMed). I should be able to enter search terms to retrieve references
which can then be saved to a source file and inserted into my document.

Adding these two features to the Word References ribbon should satisfy the
needs of the vast majority of academics and scientific researchers that
currently rely on expensive software such as EndNote. If Microsoft can add
these features, it will add an enormous value to Word. Please consider.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...cba89c&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagement

 

[p0]

Myself and many other researchers and academics worldwide would very much
like to see the functionality of Word 2007's References function extendedto
the point where we could dispense with third party citation software suchas
EndNote and the like. This could be accomplished by adding the following
features to the Word References ribbon:

1)      CUSTOM STYLES. Add an easy, intuitive way to create custom citation and
reference styles. Upon opening the styles drop-down menu I should see entries
at the bottom entitled “More…” and “Custom…”. Upon clicking “More…” I should
be taken to a Microsoft website which has a very large list of (user
contributed?) citation/reference styles from different publications and
journals which are freely available for download. When I download a styleit
should automatically be added to the Styles drop-down menu in Word. Upon
clicking “Custom…” I should be presented with a new interface whichenables
me to define completely (down to the last period and space) a custom style,
which can be saved and optionally uploaded to Microsoft’s server for
retrieval by other users.

2)      DATABASE CONNECTION. A button should added to the References ribbon
which, when clicked, opens a new interface which enables me to seamlessly
connect to one of a number of (both preset and user-definable) databases
(e.g., PubMed). I should be able to enter search terms to retrieve references
which can then be saved to a source file and inserted into my document.

Adding these two features to the Word References ribbon should satisfy the
needs of the vast majority of academics and scientific researchers that
currently rely on expensive software such as EndNote. If Microsoft can add
these features, it will add an enormous value to Word. Please consider.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=b5a5....

Have you considered the cost? The suggested retail price by Microsoft
for Office Home and Student 2007 is $149.95. It includes not only
Word, but also Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote. The price for a single
copy of EndNote (not an upgrade) costs $249,95. Do you see the
difference in pricing? If Word would be able to do what you want, they
"should/could/would" have to more than double the price of their set
of products. And that while only a small number of people would
actually use this feature. Personally, I like the low price of Office.
If I really want that functionality, I'll just pay extra for the
separate tool.

On a separate note, the European Union is constantly attacking
Microsoft for including too much functionality in their OS, be it
their Media Player (which resulted in Windows XP N) or their Internet
Explorer (still ongoing). If they would include all your requests in
Word 2010 (just putting a year here) by default, it wouldn't take long
before they are once again under attack for not allowing fair
competition (EndNote, RefMan, RefWorks, ...).

I'm in favor of most of your ideas, but I would really like to see
them as a separate tool rather than included in Word 2007. A database
system containing your references should not be coupled to a single
editor anyway. It should be possible to use it with Open Office as
well for example. As a separate tool, people wouldn't be forced to buy
it when they don't need it and we would get a fair market competition.

Yves

 

[grammatim]

Have you considered the cost? The suggested retail price by Microsoft
for Office Home and Student 2007 is $149.95. It includes not only
Word, but also Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote. The price for a single
copy of EndNote (not an upgrade) costs $249,95. Do you see the
difference in pricing? If Word would be able to do what you want, they
"should/could/would" have to more than double the price of their set
of products. And that while only a small number of people would
actually use this feature. Personally, I like the low price of Office.
If I really want that functionality, I'll just pay extra for the
separate tool.

On a separate note, the European Union is constantly attacking
Microsoft for including too much functionality in their OS, be it
their Media Player (which resulted in Windows XP N) or their Internet
Explorer (still ongoing). If they would include all your requests in
Word 2010 (just putting a year here) by default, it wouldn't take long
before they are once again under attack for not allowing fair
competition (EndNote, RefMan, RefWorks, ...).

I'm in favor of most of your ideas, but I would really like to see
them as a separate tool rather than included in Word 2007. A database
system containing your references should not be coupled to a single
editor anyway. It should be possible to use it with Open Office as
well for example. As a separate tool, people wouldn't be forced to buy
it when they don't need it and we would get a fair market competition.

Yet Microsoft chose to include a virtually non-functional imitation of
a Bibliography system in Word2007.

Your price comparison isn't fair -- EndNote is immensely overpriced,
and MS certainly doesn't increase its prices by the amount the things
it incorporates from other sources used to cost separately.

 

[p0]

Yet Microsoft chose to include a virtually non-functional imitation of
a Bibliography system in Word2007.

Depends on how you look at it. For numeric styles such as Vancouver,
AMA, IEEE, ACM, Elsevier, Springer, and hundreds of others it works
perfect. They could simplify some style development stuff, but that's
about it. For author-date styles, it is mostly a failure when you are
working with anything not straightforward. So for a first release,
they have about half their user base happy. Not a bad start in my
opinion. Compared to the number of people complaining about the
ribbon, I would actually chalk this one up as a success.

Your price comparison isn't fair -- EndNote is immensely overpriced,
and MS certainly doesn't increase its prices by the amount the things
it incorporates from other sources used to cost separately.

If EndNote is immensely overpriced, you should take a look at
RefWorks. Pricing is $100 for 12 months. Considering Word went from
2003 to 2007, that would result in $400. And for Biblioscape, the
professional version (with non of the interesting extensions) is $299.
Compared to those, EndNote is cheap. But if you really think it all is
overpriced, you should consider hiring a team of software developers
to make similar software. You could then sell it at $100 a copy and
corner the market in no time. Users would have the perfect tool and
you will be rich enough to retire as you seem to have almost no costs
to cover.

Of course Microsoft wouldn't raise their prices that drastically (at
least I hope). But even if prices were raised with only $2, would it
be worth it to the average person who would never use the feature at
all? Personally, I don't think everybody should pay for the enjoyment
of the few. That's something which is already happening way too often
when it comes to software features. And, like I mentioned earlier,
next to pricing, I see other reasons to make this tool a separate
entity.

I like the OP's suggestions, just not incorporated in Word directly.

 

[grammatim]

Depends on how you look at it. For numeric styles such as Vancouver,
AMA, IEEE, ACM, Elsevier, Springer, and hundreds of others it works

What do you mean by hundreds of others? There are 10 choices in the
dropdown, and I've gone through the list while showing a bibliography
of about 60 items, seeing how they handle the different kinds of item.
Some of them have explicit labels and fences, which must be intended
as input to some other sort of system, rather than as publishable
items. The one or two that put the date after the author then don't
order them by author-date, but by author-title! Several of the styles
are listed under author for books but under title for articles! What
good can that be for anyone?

What I ended up doing in that article was first to format with
Chicago, so as to get citations with author [no comma] date, and then
I changed each one to static text (Redo, Ctrl-Y, accomplishes this,
but selecting more than one at a time doesn't) so that I could put the
names outside the parentheses where necessary.

It's infuriating that whenever there's more than one item by a
particular author, it insists on including the title in the citation,
so that I have to Suppress Title over and over.

For the bibliography, I changed the style to APA, which gave me the
date directly after the author, changed it to static text (yet somehow
the bibliography retained its background shading, as if it was still a
Field), selected all the paragraphs and Sorted it, so it would be
ordered by author-date, replaced duplicated authors with 3 em-dashes,
and then typed all the first names (since APA uses only initials), and
cleared up the other anomalies caused by the styling.

(For items with the same author and date, I had put the a and b in the
database entry.)

perfect. They could simplify some style development stuff, but that's
about it. For author-date styles, it is mostly a failure when you are
working with anything not straightforward. So for a first release,
they have about half their user base happy. Not a bad start in my
opinion. Compared to the number of people complaining about the
ribbon, I would actually chalk this one up as a success.

OTOH, considering the tiny number of potential users, why bother in
the first place? But if they were going to bother, why not make it
suit that small user pool, e.g. by understanding that the volume
number is an essential part of a Journal Article reference, or that a
Book Chapter is a very common item, not provided for? (Book Section
doesn't even vaguely resemble the proper form, and gets all the
publication info in a very weird order.)

If EndNote is immensely overpriced, you should take a look at
RefWorks. Pricing is $100 for 12 months. Considering Word went from
2003 to 2007, that would result in $400. And for Biblioscape, the
professional version (with non of the interesting extensions) is $299.
Compared to those, EndNote is cheap. But if you really think it all is
overpriced, you should consider hiring a team of software developers
to make similar software. You could then sell it at $100 a copy and
corner the market in no time. Users would have the perfect tool and
you will be rich enough to retire as you seem to have almost no costs
to cover.

I don't remember what Papyrus cost -- it was one guy, working under
the name RSD (Research Software Development), starting maybe 15 years
ago, and it was only for Mac -- but it must have been very reasonable
(much less than the comparable price for EndNote today) or I couldn't
have afforded to buy it. Unfortunately the cost of moving up to OS X
was too great for him, so he simply opened up his website and offered
it as a free download to legacy users. (If I were still on the Mac, I
would doubtless still be getting messages from the Papyrus discussion
list.) It's incredibly flexible, and (though I never used this
feature) you could enter a citation in a Word document and when you
were done, it would run through it and assemble the bibliography.
(Needless to say, users could create their own templates for different
styles and different sorts of items within each style, and there was
lots of sharing of such formats.)

Of course Microsoft wouldn't raise their prices that drastically (at
least I hope). But even if prices were raised with only $2, would it
be worth it to the average person who would never use the feature at
all? Personally, I don't think everybody should pay for the enjoyment
of the few. That's something which is already happening way too often
when it comes to software features. And, like I mentioned earlier,
next to pricing, I see other reasons to make this tool a separate
entity.

I like the OP's suggestions, just not incorporated in Word directly.-

That was a pretty good description of Papyrus ...

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Since I have never seen a post from Microsoft in response to any of
these "Suggestions for Microsoft" posts, I thought I'd try to find out
which posts had received enough votes for Microsoft to respond to them.

I looked through all the groups listed "below" the office communities
page at

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx

and found the following (if someone knows a page where you can just look
up these stats, please let me know).

1. The posts visible through that interface go back to sometime in 2004
(there could be earlier ones- I didn't check every post!)

2. Over 3500 threads have been marked as "Suggestions for Microsoft." I
have not tried to group these threads by their start dates, but there
are certainly quite a lot of threads dated 2009, 2008 as well as earlier
ones.

3. 40 Threads are marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response". None
of those threads was initiated later than 2005 (early 2005, AFAICS)

4. Of the >3500 threads, the largest numbers are in
a. Outlook (over 43 pages/over 1050 threads)
b. Small Business Accounting (c. 30 pages/over 725 threads)
c. office (c. 16p/ over 375 threads)
d. Excel (c. 14 pages/over 325 threads)

5. Of the 40 threads marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response"
the largest numbers are in
a. Office (19 threads)
b. OneNote (11 threads)
c. Office Development (2 threads)

6. No other product has more than one thread marked as "Suggestions with
Microsoft Response"

7. In the Word groups, over 250 threads are marked as "Suggestions for
Microsoft". One thread is marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft
Response", and the initial post in that thread is dated early 2005.

8. I did not find a way to see the number of "votes" for any given response.


Of course,
a. some suggestions may not actually be "genuine" suggestions - they
could be rants etc.
b. many suggestions seem to have been "answered" by other
participants, e.g. perhaps a workaround was offered, or an explanation
whysomething cannot work in a certain way
c. just because Microsoft has not posted a response does not mean that
they have not seen the suggestion or done anything about it
d. for some products, the main discussions may well be considered to
be elsewhere
e. the large number of suggestions in the OneNote and Small Business
Accounting groups may reflect the fact that they are recent products
with a lively interest in the feature set.

All that said, my conclusions (not a surprise to many, I suspect) are that
a. the suggestions process has in effect been defunct for several years
b. if you think your suggestion is really worth making, I'm sure there
is no harm done posting it here, and you may see useful
discussion/counter-proposals, but it may be better to put your effort
into discovering a better channel for the suggestion. Unfortunately I
cannot tell you what that might be, but since you come from an
academic/research background, perhaps you ae in a better position to
find out

Good luck!

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[CyberTaz]

Wow - Impressive research, Peter

One "guess" on my part re the lack of Response from MS is that volume alone
prevents replying to suggestions, even though each may well be reviewed &
evaluated - but I would imagine that's rather obvious.

Another consideration, however, [perhaps supported by the time frames you
cited] is that the Discussions groups served as a primary channel of
communication earlier on. However, I believe the inclusion of the Feedback
mechanism in the software [via Options> Resources in 2007, via Help in prior
versions] has supplanted the Suggestions method of the Discussions.

.... Just some thoughts based on my perceptions of how things seem to have
evolved on the Mac side as well.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Hi Bob,

Yes, there are plenty of possible explanations, and the "couldn't cope
with the volume" is certainly one of them. It's a difficulty faced by
every customer-facing organisation with a large customer base and
cost-free contact methods such as e-mail.

However, if Microsoft are not actually even looking at these suggestions
and have no intention of responding to them through this mechanism, I
really do think they should change the rubric in the relevant
communities interface. I know that interface has been remarkably
resistant to change, e.g. no plea to change "Mailmerge and Fax" to
"Mailemrge and Fields" has ever been actioned ), but I think it is a
little unfair to advertise a facility that really no longer exists.
Perhaps they could simply refer people to the facilities in the products
instead.

While they are about it, perhaps they could fix some of the other
documentation, e.g. to do with posters' ratings. Or maybe if they are
going to try to "move" the Office groups over to the MSDN-style
web-based forums format there will be a big change anyway.

I've never tried the newer feedback mechanism, for one reason and
another, but would be interested to know if there are any stats. or even
anecdotal info. about its use/effectiveness. From Microsoft's point of
view, I doubt they are going to change or introduce features unless they
have some pretty firm evidence it's on the menu of either a large number
of potential upgraders, or corporates with large licence counts. To me,
the interesting thing is that if, say, a body of academics wants to
improve the citation mechanism (actually I have no personal interest in
them at all), how do they best demonstrate the commercial or goodwill
value of even considering such improvements.



Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

Wow - Impressive research, Peter

One "guess" on my part re the lack of Response from MS is that volume alone
prevents replying to suggestions, even though each may well be reviewed &
evaluated - but I would imagine that's rather obvious.

Another consideration, however, [perhaps supported by the time frames you
cited] is that the Discussions groups served as a primary channel of
communication earlier on. However, I believe the inclusion of the Feedback
mechanism in the software [via Options> Resources in 2007, via Help in prior
versions] has supplanted the Suggestions method of the Discussions.

... Just some thoughts based on my perceptions of how things seem to have
evolved on the Mac side as well.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Since I have never seen a post from Microsoft in response to any of
these "Suggestions for Microsoft" posts, I thought I'd try to find out
which posts had received enough votes for Microsoft to respond to them.

I looked through all the groups listed "below" the office communities
page at

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx

and found the following (if someone knows a page where you can just look
up these stats, please let me know).

1. The posts visible through that interface go back to sometime in 2004
(there could be earlier ones- I didn't check every post!)

2. Over 3500 threads have been marked as "Suggestions for Microsoft." I
have not tried to group these threads by their start dates, but there
are certainly quite a lot of threads dated 2009, 2008 as well as earlier
ones.

3. 40 Threads are marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response". None
of those threads was initiated later than 2005 (early 2005, AFAICS)

4. Of the >3500 threads, the largest numbers are in
a. Outlook (over 43 pages/over 1050 threads)
b. Small Business Accounting (c. 30 pages/over 725 threads)
c. office (c. 16p/ over 375 threads)
d. Excel (c. 14 pages/over 325 threads)

5. Of the 40 threads marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response"
the largest numbers are in
a. Office (19 threads)
b. OneNote (11 threads)
c. Office Development (2 threads)

6. No other product has more than one thread marked as "Suggestions with
Microsoft Response"

7. In the Word groups, over 250 threads are marked as "Suggestions for
Microsoft". One thread is marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft
Response", and the initial post in that thread is dated early 2005.

8. I did not find a way to see the number of "votes" for any given response.


Of course,
a. some suggestions may not actually be "genuine" suggestions - they
could be rants etc.
b. many suggestions seem to have been "answered" by other
participants, e.g. perhaps a workaround was offered, or an explanation
whysomething cannot work in a certain way
c. just because Microsoft has not posted a response does not mean that
they have not seen the suggestion or done anything about it
d. for some products, the main discussions may well be considered to
be elsewhere
e. the large number of suggestions in the OneNote and Small Business
Accounting groups may reflect the fact that they are recent products
with a lively interest in the feature set.

All that said, my conclusions (not a surprise to many, I suspect) are that
a. the suggestions process has in effect been defunct for several years
b. if you think your suggestion is really worth making, I'm sure there
is no harm done posting it here, and you may see useful
discussion/counter-proposals, but it may be better to put your effort
into discovering a better channel for the suggestion. Unfortunately I
cannot tell you what that might be, but since you come from an
academic/research background, perhaps you ae in a better position to
find out

Good luck!

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Another factor is that MS's initial commitment was never to respond to
suggestions generally but only to respond to those that received enough
"votes" to appear important. And, since Peter says he can't see the number
of votes each got, it's hard to judge that, but my impression is that
suggestions virtually never receive votes. Here, at least, they are mostly
met with arguments, workarounds, or pointing out that the requested feature
already exists. I've seen some that I might have been willing to vote for if
I were logged into the Web site, but since I post via NNTP, I don't have
that option.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

Wow - Impressive research, Peter

One "guess" on my part re the lack of Response from MS is that volume
alone
prevents replying to suggestions, even though each may well be reviewed &
evaluated - but I would imagine that's rather obvious.

Another consideration, however, [perhaps supported by the time frames you
cited] is that the Discussions groups served as a primary channel of
communication earlier on. However, I believe the inclusion of the Feedback
mechanism in the software [via Options> Resources in 2007, via Help in
prior
versions] has supplanted the Suggestions method of the Discussions.

... Just some thoughts based on my perceptions of how things seem to have
evolved on the Mac side as well.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Since I have never seen a post from Microsoft in response to any of
these "Suggestions for Microsoft" posts, I thought I'd try to find out
which posts had received enough votes for Microsoft to respond to them.

I looked through all the groups listed "below" the office communities
page at

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx

and found the following (if someone knows a page where you can just look
up these stats, please let me know).

1. The posts visible through that interface go back to sometime in 2004
(there could be earlier ones- I didn't check every post!)

2. Over 3500 threads have been marked as "Suggestions for Microsoft." I
have not tried to group these threads by their start dates, but there
are certainly quite a lot of threads dated 2009, 2008 as well as earlier
ones.

3. 40 Threads are marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response". None
of those threads was initiated later than 2005 (early 2005, AFAICS)

4. Of the >3500 threads, the largest numbers are in
a. Outlook (over 43 pages/over 1050 threads)
b. Small Business Accounting (c. 30 pages/over 725 threads)
c. office (c. 16p/ over 375 threads)
d. Excel (c. 14 pages/over 325 threads)

5. Of the 40 threads marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response"
the largest numbers are in
a. Office (19 threads)
b. OneNote (11 threads)
c. Office Development (2 threads)

6. No other product has more than one thread marked as "Suggestions with
Microsoft Response"

7. In the Word groups, over 250 threads are marked as "Suggestions for
Microsoft". One thread is marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft
Response", and the initial post in that thread is dated early 2005.

8. I did not find a way to see the number of "votes" for any given
response.


Of course,
a. some suggestions may not actually be "genuine" suggestions - they
could be rants etc.
b. many suggestions seem to have been "answered" by other
participants, e.g. perhaps a workaround was offered, or an explanation
whysomething cannot work in a certain way
c. just because Microsoft has not posted a response does not mean that
they have not seen the suggestion or done anything about it
d. for some products, the main discussions may well be considered to
be elsewhere
e. the large number of suggestions in the OneNote and Small Business
Accounting groups may reflect the fact that they are recent products
with a lively interest in the feature set.

All that said, my conclusions (not a surprise to many, I suspect) are
that
a. the suggestions process has in effect been defunct for several years
b. if you think your suggestion is really worth making, I'm sure there
is no harm done posting it here, and you may see useful
discussion/counter-proposals, but it may be better to put your effort
into discovering a better channel for the suggestion. Unfortunately I
cannot tell you what that might be, but since you come from an
academic/research background, perhaps you ae in a better position to
find out

Good luck!

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Beth Melton]

You can see the number of votes if you expand the thread hover your mouse
over the poster's name. For example the one "Suggestion with Microsoft
Response" in this group obtained "18 out of 18 votes". The actual wording
says "...found this post helpful" but if you click "I Agree" a "helpful"
vote is cast.

Unfortunately there was never any commitment to the Suggestion posts from
Microsoft. Each product group was supposed to be responsible for reviewing
the newsgroups and responding. That never happened. The only reason there
are a few "Suggestions with Microsoft Response" is because an MS employee
happened to see the post. You may also find it interesting if you note which
MS employee provided the majority of the responses. ;-)

Incidentally, the one "Suggestion with Microsoft Response" in this newsgroup
was originally a test of the Suggestion system. After someone pointed out
the test failed (about a year later) an MS response was soon posted. <g>

~Beth Melton

Another factor is that MS's initial commitment was never to respond to
suggestions generally but only to respond to those that received enough
"votes" to appear important. And, since Peter says he can't see the number
of votes each got, it's hard to judge that, but my impression is that
suggestions virtually never receive votes. Here, at least, they are mostly
met with arguments, workarounds, or pointing out that the requested
feature already exists. I've seen some that I might have been willing to
vote for if I were logged into the Web site, but since I post via NNTP, I
don't have that option.

Wow - Impressive research, Peter

One "guess" on my part re the lack of Response from MS is that volume
alone
prevents replying to suggestions, even though each may well be reviewed &
evaluated - but I would imagine that's rather obvious.

Another consideration, however, [perhaps supported by the time frames you
cited] is that the Discussions groups served as a primary channel of
communication earlier on. However, I believe the inclusion of the
Feedback
mechanism in the software [via Options> Resources in 2007, via Help in
prior
versions] has supplanted the Suggestions method of the Discussions.

... Just some thoughts based on my perceptions of how things seem to have
evolved on the Mac side as well.

Since I have never seen a post from Microsoft in response to any of
these "Suggestions for Microsoft" posts, I thought I'd try to find out
which posts had received enough votes for Microsoft to respond to them.

I looked through all the groups listed "below" the office communities
page at

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx

and found the following (if someone knows a page where you can just look
up these stats, please let me know).

1. The posts visible through that interface go back to sometime in 2004
(there could be earlier ones- I didn't check every post!)

2. Over 3500 threads have been marked as "Suggestions for Microsoft." I
have not tried to group these threads by their start dates, but there
are certainly quite a lot of threads dated 2009, 2008 as well as earlier
ones.

3. 40 Threads are marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response". None
of those threads was initiated later than 2005 (early 2005, AFAICS)

4. Of the >3500 threads, the largest numbers are in
a. Outlook (over 43 pages/over 1050 threads)
b. Small Business Accounting (c. 30 pages/over 725 threads)
c. office (c. 16p/ over 375 threads)
d. Excel (c. 14 pages/over 325 threads)

5. Of the 40 threads marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response"
the largest numbers are in
a. Office (19 threads)
b. OneNote (11 threads)
c. Office Development (2 threads)

6. No other product has more than one thread marked as "Suggestions with
Microsoft Response"

7. In the Word groups, over 250 threads are marked as "Suggestions for
Microsoft". One thread is marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft
Response", and the initial post in that thread is dated early 2005.

8. I did not find a way to see the number of "votes" for any given
response.


Of course,
a. some suggestions may not actually be "genuine" suggestions - they
could be rants etc.
b. many suggestions seem to have been "answered" by other
participants, e.g. perhaps a workaround was offered, or an explanation
whysomething cannot work in a certain way
c. just because Microsoft has not posted a response does not mean that
they have not seen the suggestion or done anything about it
d. for some products, the main discussions may well be considered to
be elsewhere
e. the large number of suggestions in the OneNote and Small Business
Accounting groups may reflect the fact that they are recent products
with a lively interest in the feature set.

All that said, my conclusions (not a surprise to many, I suspect) are
that
a. the suggestions process has in effect been defunct for several
years
b. if you think your suggestion is really worth making, I'm sure there
is no harm done posting it here, and you may see useful
discussion/counter-proposals, but it may be better to put your effort
into discovering a better channel for the suggestion. Unfortunately I
cannot tell you what that might be, but since you come from an
academic/research background, perhaps you ae in a better position to
find out

Good luck!

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

Beau wrote:
Myself and many other researchers and academics worldwide would very
much
like to see the functionality of Word 2007's References function
extended to
the point where we could dispense with third party citation software
such as
EndNote and the like. This could be accomplished by adding the
following
features to the Word References ribbon:

1) CUSTOM STYLES. Add an easy, intuitive way to create custom citation
and
reference styles. Upon opening the styles drop-down menu I should see
entries
at the bottom entitled ³MoreS² and ³CustomS². Upon clicking ³MoreS² I
should
be taken to a Microsoft website which has a very large list of (user
contributed?) citation/reference styles from different publications and
journals which are freely available for download. When I download a
style it
should automatically be added to the Styles drop-down menu in Word.
Upon
clicking ³CustomS² I should be presented with a new interface which
enables
me to define completely (down to the last period and space) a custom
style,
which can be saved and optionally uploaded to Microsoft¹s server for
retrieval by other users.

2) DATABASE CONNECTION. A button should added to the References ribbon
which, when clicked, opens a new interface which enables me to
seamlessly
connect to one of a number of (both preset and user-definable)
databases
(e.g., PubMed). I should be able to enter search terms to retrieve
references
which can then be saved to a source file and inserted into my document.

Adding these two features to the Word References ribbon should satisfy
the
needs of the vast majority of academics and scientific researchers that
currently rely on expensive software such as EndNote. If Microsoft can
add
these features, it will add an enormous value to Word. Please consider.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the
"I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow
this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and
then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=b5a5f511-1c0
9-476c-b8c6-49c12acba89c&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagement

 

[Peter Jamieson]

FWIW I tried the mouse-hovering thing and it didn't work here -
presumably some configuration difference. But it was interesting to
learn that there were as many as 18 votes for this suggestion.

Incidentally, the one "Suggestion with Microsoft Response" in this
newsgroup was originally a test of the Suggestion system. After someone
pointed out the test failed (about a year later) an MS response was soon
posted. <g>

Yes, I considered posting a "why not ditch this apparently unused
facility" but would ony do so if there was some prospect of it being
read by TPTB

On Suzanne's comment re. Microsoft's commitment to doing anything, their
Help text says the following:

"# Every month, Microsoft responds to the suggestions with the most votes"

And also

"
Discussion group participants can vote on a suggestion, and the
suggestions with the most votes are bubbled up for review. The
suggestions with the highest number of votes will be responded to by
someone at Microsoft.
"

That could of course be interpreted in a number of ways but I think it's
fairly clear that it isn't supposed to be just an "if there are /enough/
votes" thing.

But thanks to all for their comments - I would consider posting a "why
not either revive, or ditch, this apparently unused facility" Suggestion
but would ony do so if there was some prospect of it being read by TPTB
Perhaps there's another route.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

You can see the number of votes if you expand the thread hover your
mouse over the poster's name. For example the one "Suggestion with
Microsoft Response" in this group obtained "18 out of 18 votes". The
actual wording says "...found this post helpful" but if you click "I
Agree" a "helpful" vote is cast.

Unfortunately there was never any commitment to the Suggestion posts
from Microsoft. Each product group was supposed to be responsible for
reviewing the newsgroups and responding. That never happened. The only
reason there are a few "Suggestions with Microsoft Response" is because
an MS employee happened to see the post. You may also find it
interesting if you note which MS employee provided the majority of the
responses. ;-)

Incidentally, the one "Suggestion with Microsoft Response" in this
newsgroup was originally a test of the Suggestion system. After someone
pointed out the test failed (about a year later) an MS response was soon
posted. <g>

~Beth Melton

Another factor is that MS's initial commitment was never to respond to
suggestions generally but only to respond to those that received
enough "votes" to appear important. And, since Peter says he can't see
the number of votes each got, it's hard to judge that, but my
impression is that suggestions virtually never receive votes. Here, at
least, they are mostly met with arguments, workarounds, or pointing
out that the requested feature already exists. I've seen some that I
might have been willing to vote for if I were logged into the Web
site, but since I post via NNTP, I don't have that option.

Wow - Impressive research, Peter

One "guess" on my part re the lack of Response from MS is that volume
alone
prevents replying to suggestions, even though each may well be
reviewed &
evaluated - but I would imagine that's rather obvious.

Another consideration, however, [perhaps supported by the time frames
you
cited] is that the Discussions groups served as a primary channel of
communication earlier on. However, I believe the inclusion of the
Feedback
mechanism in the software [via Options> Resources in 2007, via Help
in prior
versions] has supplanted the Suggestions method of the Discussions.

... Just some thoughts based on my perceptions of how things seem to
have
evolved on the Mac side as well.

On 2/14/09 6:44 AM, in article (e-mail address removed),
"Peter

Since I have never seen a post from Microsoft in response to any of
these "Suggestions for Microsoft" posts, I thought I'd try to find out
which posts had received enough votes for Microsoft to respond to them.

I looked through all the groups listed "below" the office communities
page at

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx

and found the following (if someone knows a page where you can just
look
up these stats, please let me know).

1. The posts visible through that interface go back to sometime in 2004
(there could be earlier ones- I didn't check every post!)

2. Over 3500 threads have been marked as "Suggestions for Microsoft." I
have not tried to group these threads by their start dates, but there
are certainly quite a lot of threads dated 2009, 2008 as well as
earlier
ones.

3. 40 Threads are marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response". None
of those threads was initiated later than 2005 (early 2005, AFAICS)

4. Of the >3500 threads, the largest numbers are in
a. Outlook (over 43 pages/over 1050 threads)
b. Small Business Accounting (c. 30 pages/over 725 threads)
c. office (c. 16p/ over 375 threads)
d. Excel (c. 14 pages/over 325 threads)

5. Of the 40 threads marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response"
the largest numbers are in
a. Office (19 threads)
b. OneNote (11 threads)
c. Office Development (2 threads)

6. No other product has more than one thread marked as "Suggestions
with
Microsoft Response"

7. In the Word groups, over 250 threads are marked as "Suggestions for
Microsoft". One thread is marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft
Response", and the initial post in that thread is dated early 2005.

8. I did not find a way to see the number of "votes" for any given
response.


Of course,
a. some suggestions may not actually be "genuine" suggestions - they
could be rants etc.
b. many suggestions seem to have been "answered" by other
participants, e.g. perhaps a workaround was offered, or an explanation
whysomething cannot work in a certain way
c. just because Microsoft has not posted a response does not mean
that
they have not seen the suggestion or done anything about it
d. for some products, the main discussions may well be considered to
be elsewhere
e. the large number of suggestions in the OneNote and Small Business
Accounting groups may reflect the fact that they are recent products
with a lively interest in the feature set.

All that said, my conclusions (not a surprise to many, I suspect)
are that
a. the suggestions process has in effect been defunct for several
years
b. if you think your suggestion is really worth making, I'm sure
there
is no harm done posting it here, and you may see useful
discussion/counter-proposals, but it may be better to put your effort
into discovering a better channel for the suggestion. Unfortunately I
cannot tell you what that might be, but since you come from an
academic/research background, perhaps you ae in a better position to
find out

Good luck!

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

Beau wrote:
Myself and many other researchers and academics worldwide would
very much
like to see the functionality of Word 2007's References function
extended to
the point where we could dispense with third party citation
software such as
EndNote and the like. This could be accomplished by adding the
following
features to the Word References ribbon:

1) CUSTOM STYLES. Add an easy, intuitive way to create custom
citation and
reference styles. Upon opening the styles drop-down menu I should
see entries
at the bottom entitled ³MoreS² and ³CustomS². Upon clicking ³MoreS²
I should
be taken to a Microsoft website which has a very large list of (user
contributed?) citation/reference styles from different publications
and
journals which are freely available for download. When I download a
style it
should automatically be added to the Styles drop-down menu in Word.
Upon
clicking ³CustomS² I should be presented with a new interface which
enables
me to define completely (down to the last period and space) a
custom style,
which can be saved and optionally uploaded to Microsoft¹s server for
retrieval by other users.

2) DATABASE CONNECTION. A button should added to the References ribbon
which, when clicked, opens a new interface which enables me to
seamlessly
connect to one of a number of (both preset and user-definable)
databases
(e.g., PubMed). I should be able to enter search terms to retrieve
references
which can then be saved to a source file and inserted into my
document.

Adding these two features to the Word References ribbon should
satisfy the
needs of the vast majority of academics and scientific researchers
that
currently rely on expensive software such as EndNote. If Microsoft
can add
these features, it will add an enormous value to Word. Please
consider.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click
the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button,
follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader
and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=b5a5f511-1c0

9-476c-b8c6-49c12acba89c&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagement