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Mike,
Recently TGB somehow negotiated an exclusive with Microsoft for a M$ person to moderate a forum on their board. ("Ask Jessica") Some of us are a little cross pollenated here and like to keep a toe in the door over there to see what's happening on the other side of the world. The truth is that it's hard to get heard over there and I'm wondering if you have considered discussing such an arrangement for Australia. I'm well aware that the likelihood is somewhat remote but I can't help thinking that with our unique issues it might be at least worth a try. What do you think?
I think its a fantastic idea, and I'll do anything I can to aid in seeing it come about. However, I see two problems with it:
1. The local MS office is really a sales outfit - no significant engineering is done in Australia. We really want someone from the MCE development team to moderate a forum for us - so we need to talk with MS in the US.
2. The local MS office is really a sales outfit - if an activity doesn't make money they are loathe to get involved.
In the meantime, I'll chat with the MS people I know and see what they think.
ozGremlin
I think its a fantastic idea, and I'll do anything I can to aid in seeing it come about. However, I see two problems with it:
1. The local MS office is really a sales outfit - no significant engineering is done in Australia. We really want someone from the MCE development team to moderate a forum for us - so we need to talk with MS in the US.
2. The local MS office is really a sales outfit - if an activity doesn't make money they are loathe to get involved.
In the meantime, I'll chat with the MS people I know and see what they think.
ozGremlin
Great Oz! Be aware that Mike really needs to approve something like this first but assuming he has no objections, any help will I'm sure be appreciated.
Don't want to poo poo the idea but I think it's a bit of a pipe dream. MS in the US has about as much interest in non US markets as I do in Microsofts success.
There have been and still are regular members of MS Australia on this site. They are well up with local issues and have expressed at times the frustration that they themselves experience when dealing with MS head office.
So you'll likely get:
MS Aus: "Sorry, we've tried but there's nothing more we can do"... and they will try hard.
or
MS US: ""... until such time as Aus is declared another state of America (possibly not that far away )
Cheers,
Arkay
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The box said 'Requires Windows XP or better' - so I installed Linux . . .
Don't want to poo poo the idea but I think it's a bit of a pipe dream. MS in the US has about as much interest in non US markets as I do in Microsofts success.
There have been and still are regular members of MS Australia on this site. They are well up with local issues and have expressed at times the frustration that they themselves experience when dealing with MS head office.
So you'll likely get:
MS Aus: "Sorry, we've tried but there's nothing more we can do"... and they will try hard.
or
MS US: ""... until such time as Aus is declared another state of America (possibly not that far away )
Aaaah yes arkay... the eternal skeptic. I can't say I disagree with your assessment of history arkay but surely if we accept that we will always be treated that way we will never progress. IMHO it's at least worth running up the flagpole!
You'll never never know if you never never (have a) go!
I think it's a good initiative for TGB, but as has been already mentioned, I'm unsure how well resourced the local MS office is with Media Center savvy personnel.
But now that it's been done, I'm a little wary of "me tooing" other people's ideas - but if the clamour was loud enough here and MS were up for it, I might be persuaded.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ozGremlin
We really want someone from the MCE development team to moderate a forum for us - so we need to talk with MS in the US
errr let's ease up a little - asking MS to answer questions is one thing, inviting them to moderate a forum is something quite different. We've done pretty well and solved a lot of problems here in the last 2.5 years without an "official" MS presence (btw - there are lots of registered @microsoft.com email addresses in my database ) And which forum would we use? - we currently have 40 to cover all the topics - doing an "Ask Jessica Downunder" would be an invite to have 250 to 400 posts a day dumped into just one forum making searching on categorised information a little more difficult.
Either way, I've put a call in to my favourite contact there and I'll report back.
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The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to Mike for this information:
Either way, I've put a call in to my favourite contact there and I'll report back.
Thanks Mike. I'm well aware it's not as simple as all that and personally I'm not sure we need to give a hoot to the Me Too factor. In the end it's about give and take with Microsoft. Anyway, I guess we'll see if it amounts to anything soon enough.
P.S. Sorry about the word "Moderate" in my post. It does actually convey much more than I intended.
If it comes at the cost of not being able to bag MS or their affiliates (when they deserve it or not) through some kind of gag restriction then I wouldn't want to see it here. Freedom of expression I think is more important than an MS presence. I have no problem with MS. Apple, etc bashing so long as the poster is prepared to defend the "bashing". What i would not like to see is some kind of blanket MS gag order just so an MS staffer can feel "safe" or so that MS can point to this site as a community refrence (and free advertisement!)
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That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.
Aristotle
If it comes at the cost of not being able to bag MS or their affiliates (when they deserve it or not) through some kind of gag restriction then I wouldn't want to see it here. Freedom of expression I think is more important than an MS presence. I have no problem with MS. Apple, etc bashing so long as the poster is prepared to defend the "bashing". What i would not like to see is some kind of blanket MS gag order just so an MS staffer can feel "safe" or so that MS can point to this site as a community refrence (and free advertisement!)
I would definitely second that. If that were the case it would completely change the nature of the community and I couldn't see that as a positive.
) And which forum would we use? - we currently have 40 to cover all the topics - doing an "Ask Jessica Downunder" would be an invite to have 250 to 400 posts a day dumped into just one forum making searching on categorised information a little more difficult.
