Is this a "dead" newsgroup, or what?

[keithb]

I posted a question 2 days ago and so far no one has answered it. Are there
now Microsoft people monitoring this newsgroup????

Keith

 

[Keith Jakobs, MCP]

Yes,

I have also noticed a very paltry response rate to posts in this and other
Visio groups.

Perhaps MS is bailing on Visio. They certainly dotn promote it any more.

Keith J.

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

All the Microsoft newsgroups are peer to peer support system. Users helping
other users. Occasionally members of the Microsoft Visio team do drop by to
help out, but the main group of people answering questions are other Visio
users. So it is possible that no one else has run into the HTML problem you
had. Also, the Visio users who do help out, do so on their own time, so do
not expect fast responses.

John... Visio MVP

Need stencils or ideas? http://www.mvps.org/visio/3rdparty.htm
Need VBA examples? http://www.mvps.org/visio/VBA.htm
Common Visio Questions http://www.mvps.org/visio/common_questions.htm

 

[keithb]

What about you John, you are an MVP. Have you every tried saving a visio as
an html page? Does Microsoft have any other Visio support resources?

Keith

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

No, I have not come across that issue.

The MVPs are user who have been recognized by Microsoft for the help they
have provided in the Microsft newsgroups over the past year. I have been
helping out in the online Visio forums since 93 and recieved my first MVP
award when Microsoft acquired Visio in 2000. Unfortunately, I still have a
lot to learn about Visio.

John... Visio MVP

Need stencils or ideas? http://www.mvps.org/visio/3rdparty.htm
Need VBA examples? http://www.mvps.org/visio/VBA.htm
Common Visio Questions http://www.mvps.org/visio/common_questions.htm

 

[jbollyn]

MS is definitely not bailing on Visio. I recently posted my
one-and-only question to this Usenet newsgroup (which I have since
answered for myself), and I noticed that many posts never get a single
reply. Most companies are trying to get *away* from free support.

IMHO, HP hosts the best peer-to-peer forum, by far, see here:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/

I am disappointed that a company with MS's vast resources does not host
a support forum at least equal to HP. But the corporate culture of
those two companies is quite different. MS has always been somewhat
paranoid about their competition, even when the MS market share is so
one-sided.

Visio is an excellent product, and I am sure MS will continue to devote
significant resources to enhancing it.

- Jay MCP

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

In comparison to traffic in other Microsoft newsgroups the traffic in the
Visio newsgroups is light. This means that if you ask a question in one of
the Visio newsgroups, you have fewer people looking at your question and
less chance of getting an answer. In comparison, there is higher traffic in
the Access newsgroup and there is a very good chance you will get an answer,
sometimes within minutes. With a smaller audience, you may have a long wait
until a person who can answer the question gets online.

To get an idea of how much traffic hits the newsgroups take a look at
http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/

Replace "rec.music" with ".visio.". (Include the dots before and after the
name to filter out newsgroups about revision and television)

Have fun exploring.

I have not noticed that MS was more paranoid than HP/DEC/Compaq.
On the hardware side, HP has a lot of loyalty because of quality, but there
software side was pathetic. DEC had excellent software, luckily for MS some
of those developers have control of the Windows OS.

John... Visio MVP