It's very rare (if at all) one sees replies from MrExcel MVP, for example,
posted in MS Excel news group!
If you are referring to the website mrexcel.com, well yeah! I
wouldn't be surprised if it does not use the NNTP protocol at all. I
believe it is an ad hoc private "discussion group" (forum), not a
public newsgroup. I don't know anything it or its credibility.
In one of my earlier posts, I made ref. to a reply in another DG, for which
the MVP replied: "I only respond to questions posted in this forum".
Without specifcs (e.g. a URL link that points to the specific reply in
a public newsgroup), it is difficult for me to comment. But I believe
that any Excel MVP looks at all of the following Excel newsgroups with
equal frequency (where "m.p.e" is shorthand for
microsoft.public.excel): m.p.e, m.p.e.misc and
m.p.e.worksheet.functions.
There might be specialist in, say, Excel Chart who primarily
participate in m.p.e.charting. But I would be surprised if they do
not also look at m.p.e.misc, at least.
Out of curiosity, and even if it's not necessary to do so based on your
comments, how would you enter (under "Advanced Options") the full
address of, say :
http://www.johnsmith.com/forum/.....
Would you type it as shown or remove the http:// ??
That question is specific to the news reader interface that you use.
I don't believe I use the same one.
Since you use the term DG ("discussion group") and your email address
is "@discussions.microsoft.com", I suspect you are referring to the
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups website, which you
might access directly or indirectly (e.g. using Outlook or Outlook
Express).
When I click on "Advance Options" in the window for posting a new
question, the instructions for the crossposting field say: "use the
full USENET designation". I can only guess that they mean, for
example, microsoft.public.excel.misc, the actual public newsgroup name
for the MS discussion group called "Excel General Questions".
(Just tried it and, yes, that seems to be the case.)
"How would you know that?", you might ask. I don't know the official
method. I simply opened a posting in the interesting MS DG and look
at the "In:" field.
But again, beware: I don't know if that truly crossposts, or if that
results in duplicate postings.
(Just tried it and, yes, it seems to truly crosspost.)
Moreover, if you are indeed using the MS discussion groups, be advised
that my experience has been that postings (at least initial postings
of a thread) are not always pushed out to the rest of the Usenet
world. At least, I often fail to see them in Google Groups, no matter
how long I wait. (A delay is common.)
In fact, I wonder if that is what Excel MVP was referring to
implicitly. He/she might not have seen something that you posted
using MS "communities/newsgroups".
