That is a shame Ron, I have enjoyed your contributions. But MS don't care,
there will always be hundreds stepping up even if they aren't up to your
capabilities, and they have shown a blind indifference to those more capable
users amongst us.

Bob

"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 05 May 2010 23:26:01 GMT,
z (Bruce Sinclair) wrote:

In article , "T. Valko"
wrote:
I didn't go to this link to read about the replacement forum:

http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx

So I have no idea if that link mentions the location of the new forums.

The new Excel forums are located at:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

I've started posting there. The UI is completely different but it's still
a
web based forum!

This is a backward step IMO. To me, newsgroups have everything that is
good
with nothing (well, OK, very little :) ) that is bad about the on line
community. A short list of these would include:

Quick and easy.
Simple disply.
Can get headers only and download just what you want to read.
Properly threaded discussions.
Access to hundreds/thousands of helpful knowlegeable people not only
willing
but eager to help.
Text only (ie *not* web based).
Many news readers available ... there's is bound to be something out
there
to suit everyone.
Archived.

Negatives ? Well, a few spammers and idiots ... but most news software has
excellent filters, so that's taken care of. :)


For myself, I will never use a browser to read news or "forums". It's too
slow, too clunky and cumbersome, has bad to non existent threading, bad to
no filters and is ugly, to name a few reasons.

I guess there will be a few die hards <puts up hand that stick with MS
news
groups, for a while at least, and it is likely there will still be some
traffic for a while with a few people willing and able to help ... but it
sounds like MS is trying to kill off this helpful support line.

Given it's free to them, I can't imagine why they think this is a good
idea.




As just a user and occasional contributor, I concur with Bruce's analysis.
I
went and tried the web interface last night (as I have for other forums in
the
past), and found it much more difficult to use than the newsgroups. It
crashed
a few times (page not accessible errors).

I have better things to do with my time, so when these newsgroups stop
functioning, I will cut down my participation significantly.
--ron