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    As an MSDN subscriber it would be helpful if Microsoft ran some "subscriber only" forums. These would allow anyone to post questions/comments if they had an MSDN subscription but provide read-only access to everyone else.

    People would still have to register as they do on these existing forums, its just that preference would be given to those who have paid thousands of dollars in order to seriously develop on these platforms.

    The reason I suggest this is that the current MSDN forums are swamped with noise because anyone and everyone who fancies themselves as a "developer" and has downloaded Visual Studio express, is posting here.

    I doesn't make much sense to me that a question posted by an experienced individual who has been using Microsoft development tools for years gets no more priority that some silly question asked by a novice who has barely any coding experience.

    Such subscriber only forums would almost certainly see a higher quality of question and issues raised would likely be more thoughtfully described, an experienced developer is more likely to have investigated an issue and tried the obvious things already so Microsoft would waste less time dealing with silly questions.

    So that's my suggestion - be interested to hear what other think.

    Cap'n

    Thursday, October 31, 2013 3:49 PM

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    I disagree.  Who's to say whose question should get priority?  How do you know the novice coder has not just started a job that supplies an MSDN subscription?

    Please do not read this sentence. Please ignore the previous sentence.

    Thursday, October 31, 2013 4:37 PM
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    Well if I explain my motivation better you may see why I'm suggesting it.

    I'm not suggesting for a moment that this existing forum be changed - it can remain as it so there is no loss to the existing developer community.

    But if some new forum is setup that is only for MSDN subscribers (consider it as just an additional benefit of a subscription) then it will greatly reduce the degree of 'noise' which is present in the unrestricted forums. The current forums are swamped with naïve posters who sometimes ask silly questions or even attempt to get people to write homework assignments for them and so on, we've all seen these posts.

    In short there will be a much higher overall "quality" in a restricted forum, less noise and so questions will get answered more quickly.

    Because these new forums are visible with read access to the public they too will benefit because they can visit an MSDN subscription forum and see experienced developers asking sensible questions and getting sensible answers from other experienced developers.

    Although I have no data I do get the impression too that recently these forums have seen increasing activity - perhaps due to the opening up of the App store and the free edition of Visual Studio - this has led to an increasing volume of posts per day and so an increased risk that a question will be overlooked and relegated to the second or third page of search results within hours of being posted.

    So that's all I'm suggesting - create a "members only" forum for exclusive use by MSDN subscribers.

    Cap'n


    Friday, November 1, 2013 6:23 PM
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    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsapps/en-US/719f34cc-5376-47cf-810c-3f5f3ac2ebdb/using-c-on-rs232?forum=csharpgeneral

    See what I mean? This kind of crud would be filtered out in a forum which is for MSDN subscribers only.

    Cap'n

    Wednesday, November 6, 2013 2:08 AM