Forum Ninjas https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/feed.xml Official blog of the MSDN and TechNet Forum Ninjas Tue, 16 Apr 2019 05:05:53 GMT en-US hourly 1 Thursday Best Practices: How to find the correct MSDN and TechNet forum https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/thursday-best-practices-how-to-find-the-correct-msdn-and-technet-forum Fri, 28 Sep 2018 22:44:18 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2895 Good day all! We are back with the Thursday Forum Best Practices where we discuss about a feature or practice on how you can best utilize MSDN/TechNet Forums. Today's blog post topic is inspired from our weekly blog posting theme Wednesday Featured Forums that was published on a topic Wednesday Featured Forums: Where is the Forum For…? If you’re new to the MSDN and TechNet forums then you might have faced this situation how to pick the correct forum to post the question about your issues. This is because there's so many categories and each of them talks about a specific topic and solutions and the community members those you see in those forums are experts in those topics. When someone is new this scenario often occurs that as not sure which forum to post the question Asker/OP posts the same question in several other related forum categories. As the same question appears in multiple forums, this sometimes confuses other to decide whether this is the correct forum for them to ask question or not. The MSDN and TechNet forum is an important social and learning element of various technical issues on Microsoft's products. So, to solve this how to find the correct forum to post your issues there is an Info Desk like forum Where is the Forum For…? the purpose here is to guide or point the community members to where is the appropriate forum to ask about their issues. So, if one is unsure where to ask about their issue they can post the question and asking to point them to the appropriate forum or simply ask moderator to move the post to appropriate forum. Also if you visit the forum homepage you will see on the top left hand side there is a menu "view all" If you click it you will get the forum list. You can look into this fantastic article List of forums by Languages, categories, and field of discussions by Ronen about all the forum categories that are available. That is all for now and see you in the next blog.
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
]]> Wednesday Featured Forums: Where is the Forum For…? https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/wednesday-featured-forums-where-is-the-forum-for Wed, 26 Sep 2018 23:08:57 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2885 Where is the Forum For…? forum. This week theme is about a forum that has an example of great collaboration and moderation so, my pick is this Where is the Forum For…? forum. Often we are not sure in MSDN and TechNet forum where to ask question about the technical issue that we are facing. Because there is so many categories and each of them talks about a specific topic and solutions and the community members those you see in those forums are experts in those topics. When one mistakenly posts into wrong forum and if a moderator noticed that this an off-topic for this forum category then they move that post to correct forum. Often it happens that as the posted issue is on different topic then this post sometimes gets unnoticed and unanswered which lead the OP to post the same question in several other forum categories. As the same question appears in multiple forums, this scenario sometimes confuses the new member to decide whether this is the correct forum for them to ask question or not. So, the purpose of Where is the Forum For…? forum is to guide or point the community members to where is the appropriate forum to ask about their issue in MSDN and TechNet forum. So, if one is unsure where to ask about their issue they can post the question and asking to point them to the appropriate forum or simply ask moderator to move the post to appropriate forum.
Lead me, Guide me, Help me To Find The Way.
This will minimize the posting into wrong forum and OP will get the solution quickly. This forum contains 22387 pages of questions and answers of great collaboration, where community members are asking to guide them to the appropriate forum to ask their issues. You can learn more about the purpose of this forum from this awesome explanation PURPOSE OF THIS FORUM - This forum tells you where to go ask questions - Please Read Before Posting by Ed Price. Also if you want to know what are the categories of forums in MSDN and TechNet then see this fantastic article List of forums by Languages, categories, and field of discussions by Ronen. That is all for now. All the best! and see you on the next blog. Here are some post to you can look understand more about the purpose of this forum.
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
]]> Tuesday Featured Post: Community Discussion 365 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/tuesday-featured-post-community-discussion-365 Tue, 25 Sep 2018 23:51:33 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2875 Good Day All! We are back with the Tuesday’s Featured Post where we discuss a Forum Post or a Forum Thread from the MSDN or TechNet Forums and then highlight the value that they added. This week theme is about how a great forum post or discussion looks like and some key points from there what makes them great to continue long time. So, for this week pick for the featured post I have selected backup tool asked by wingers from Visual Basic forum. So, you are probably wondering why there is 365 in the title of this blog Community Discussion 365. This is because the forum post that we will be looking into today is actually has around 1000 replies! splitted into 4 forum posts (282 replies + 78 replies + 676 replies + 48 replies) in total with 6000 views and continued for 2 years, yeah! long. 🙂 Here is the forum post where this topic got splitted into as the thread becoming long (one thread actually has 676 replies): This forum posts is a good example of
  • How a community discussion looks like
  • How to respond to replies
  • How to express your thoughts
"Words can inspire. And words can destroy. Choose yours well."
In this thread Original Poster talks about creating a tool more specifically a Backup Tool which will perform backing up process of specified folders to a chosen  different location for Keep it Safe. The discussion started by OP referring to another forum post answered by Frank L. Smith on related topic which does what OP wants 99% and want to modify the code as per requirement but it is not working as expected so in OP's word Any suggestions/advice/help that could be given would be much appreciated. This thread discussion takes place mostly between the OP wingers and answerer Frank L. Smith as because the forum post that OP refereed was answered by Frank L. Smith The first two forum post discusses about the solution to OP's issue And second two forum post discusses about a new improved versions of the solution. If we look closely in this thread we will see that besides discussing about a solution the participated members thoughts and expression in the reply makes this forum post great.
  • Every replies here expresses politeness, gratefulness and thanking other for giving time and saying there's no hurry
  • And if one is busy and has some things to take care of and will be late in replying then they also mentioned this. In this way member will be aware that he will be getting feedback as the dely is because other person is busy
  • Participated members discussing in details with code so the issue is easier to understand what one is trying to say
  • Keeps continue until they find a solution
  • More importantly! when OP wants to discuss a new improve version both the OP wingers and answerer Frank L. Smith again started their conversation. Which explains how active these member are in the community
  • And if you look closely how often the replies takes place in this forum posts you will see there is not much time difference, which indicates they are active and really eager to find a solution. This inspires others that if he/she provide a solution or feedback OP most like to try that solution and give a feedback whether it worked or not. Most often we see that replies take place after a long gap because members are busy and they make some time from their busy life to help the community.
So, my key points is from this thread is
  • Always thanking other for their hard work
  • Discuss in details about the issue and solution
  • Be active in replying
With this forum post we can see that being active, thanking other for their hard work and discussing in details can lead to a solution no matter how delay it is. I hope that this post helps and see you on the next one.
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
]]> Thursday Best Practices: Being Polite and Grateful Will Make People More Inclined To Help You https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/thursday-best-practices-being-polite-and-grateful-will-make-people-more-inclined-to-help-you Thu, 13 Sep 2018 23:25:47 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2855 Hey Guys! We are back with the Thursday Forum Best Practices where we discuss about a feature or practice on how you can best utilize MSDN/TechNet Forums. Today's blog post topic is inspired from our weekly blog posting theme Tuesday Featured Post that was published on a topic Tuesday Featured Post: An Example of Community Discussion. What makes the above blog post is great is that it talks about a forum post that got 168 replies! In this blog post we will discuss the practices that Original Poster is used in that forum post that leads to this many replies. The OP started the post with a question detailing about re-writing a program that was developed 25 years ago and shares a variety of choices that OP explored for this re-development process and what concern does OP has regarding selecting this new technologies. If you read closely the details in the question section, you will notice that how much OP is grateful and humble to the community members. And OP know that these details are the necessary information for community members to give feedback about the issue. One thing you will notice is that the answers in this thread has a details explanation about the solution that community members is providing and their pros and cons. Not only this but also they are  making a time to find a test data by themselves  for providing the solution. There are rare forum post that you will see have these types of efforts and answers with this great explanations and this is one of them. This is achieved in this forum post is because OP is very kind and polite to the community member by appreciating all the answers and then replying that OP is trying all the solutions and making decision which way approach. Let's see some of the politeness and appreciation from the OP to community members. How Original Poster is thanking one of the answerers. OP explicitly bolded the word "excellent",
"Thank you very much for the excellent explanation and the encouragement to go forward."
Like other forum posts answerers of this thread also expects an update from the OP whether the provided solution worked or not. So, not seeing any update for couple of days from OP one of the answerers followed up about the status of the issue. Here's how OP replies why OP was not able to give the update,
"Apologies for the delay but a winter cold has wiped me out for a couple of days."
From the above replies it shows that how kind and appreciating OP is to the community members for helping out to finding a solution. This is a great example of how politeness and kindness can lead to a great collaboration. An make others to make some time for you from their busy life. I hope that this post helps and see you on the next one.
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
]]> Wednesday Featured Forums: Visual Basic Forum https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/wednesday-featured-forums-visual-basic-forum Tue, 11 Sep 2018 22:56:58 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2845 BASIC and enables the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications.

BASIC means Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

Learn more about Visual Basic:
  • The final release was version 6 in 1998 (now known simply as Visual Basic)
  • Then in 2002, Microsoft released Visual Basic.NET (VB.NET) to replace Visual Basic 6
  • Thereafter, in 2008 Microsoft declared VB6 a legacy programming language and stopped supporting Visual Basic 6.0 IDE
  • Fortunately, Microsoft Visual Basic team still maintains compatibility for Visual Basic 6.0 applications on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 including R2, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 through its "It Just Works" program
Many developers still favor Visual Basic 6.0 over its successor Visual Basic.NET. There are many widely used MSDN forum and this is one of them which contains around 86687 pages of questions and answers of great collaboration, where community members are discussing their issues and solution approaches and learns from each other. There are many Q&A thread and discussion posts you can find which contains great collaboration! You can also look into this weekly featured post Tuesday Featured Post: An Example of Community Discussion where you can learn more about how are these collaboration taking place between community members. Now that we have a brief overview let's move to the Visual Basic Forum. To access the forums you can click on the link below: Visual Basic If you want to learn more about Visual Basic, here is a list of resources available to try: That is all for now. All the best!
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
]]> Tuesday Featured Post: An Example of Community Discussion https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/tuesday-featured-post-an-example-of-community-discussion Mon, 10 Sep 2018 22:13:29 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2825
Choose to focus your time, energy and conversation around people who inspire you, support you and help you to grow you into your happiest, strongest, wisest self. - Karen Salmansohn
Good Day All! We are back with the Tuesday’s Featured Post where we discuss a Forum Post or a Forum Thread from the MSDN or TechNet Forums and then highlight the value that they added. Community Discussion is a way to participate in conversation and giving solution feedback on important needs and issues. So, for this week pick for the featured post I have selected Visual Studio 2013 - New Project asked by Margarita_Cody from Visual Basic Forum. Why this post is great first of all this thread has 168 replies!. Definitely there is some good conversation take place in this thread otherwise it would not had this much replies. Original Poster here talks about an application that OP was developed 25 years ago in VB6 and now wants to re-write the whole program in Visual Studio more importantly using latest technologies. This forum post is a good example of,
  • How a conversation in the community should look like
  • How one can state the issue or problem that he/she is facing
  • What necessary information one should provide regarding the issue or problem
  • How one can respect others opinion and feedback
  • How one can appreciate other community members effort to finding solution of issue that you posted
People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude. - John C. Maxwell
There is not much to discuss about this forum post as because it has well organized discussion and pretty much self explanatory which speaks for it self. I hope that this post helps and see you on the next one.
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
]]> Thursday Best Practices: Together We Can Make Things Happen https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/thursday-best-practices-together-we-can-make-things-happen Sat, 08 Sep 2018 00:11:06 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2815 Tuesday Featured Post: Learning With Fun. In the above blog post we can see that it talks about how one can start learning Small basic programming language and more importantly having a fun when learning programming. One of the learning approach this thread is following is by a monthly programming challenges where there are some interesting topic like drawing various shapes, math problem solution etc. that need to done by small basic programming. The intention of these challenges is to encourages the community members to share if any problem or issue they faced during solving these challenges so that a discussion can start and member's can learn from each other. Also if anyone has an idea for future challenges they can share it here so that challenges can continue in next month. An example joining forces with like minded individuals & stick together, we have a better chance of finding the solution of the challenges.
"Alone, we are powerless. But, together, we can make things happen."
If we see the answers in the thread we can see that there are some fun and interesting pictures drawn like football, 3D array football and sharing experience about benefit of using some of the advance drawing features in small basic. Also, reference to code is also shared by the participants. This is an great example of learning something together where collaborating on any issues usually brings better results. I hope that this post helps and see you on the next one.
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
]]> Wednesday Featured Forums: Small Basic Forum https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/wednesday-featured-forums-small-basic-forum Thu, 06 Sep 2018 21:52:21 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2805 Microsoft Small Basic Forum. Lets learn first what is Microsoft Small Basic? Microsoft Small Basic is a programming language which is simplified version of BASIC programming language intended as an easy programming language for beginners. Yes you read it right "Easy" and "Beginner". As its name suggests a small and simple language that makes it possible to easily accessible, learn and teach to complete beginner about programming. The Environment is simple but rich in features, offering beginners several of the benefits like a rich set of Libraries help beginners learn by writing compelling and interesting programs. The unique feature of the Small Basic language is that unlike other programming languages it consists 14 keywords and another 2 operators (And, Or), totaling 16 reserved words. A list of Small Basic keywords is shown below.
If, Then, Else, ElseIf, EndIf, For, To, Step, EndFor, While, EndWhile, Sub, EndSub, Goto, And, Or
Small Basic forum contains 4786 pages of questions and answers of great collaboration, where community members are discussing their issues and solution approach and learning from each other. This forum also has a monthly programming challenges containing compelling and interesting topics from various categories like below for beginner to learn in easy and interesting way.
  • Graphics Challenges
  • Maths Challenge
  • Game Challenge
  • Turtle Challenge
More information about Small Basic forum can be found in this featured post Tuesday Featured Post: Learning With Fun. Now that we have a brief overview let's move to the Small Basic Forum. To access the forums you can click on the link below: Small Basic One of the feature you can see in the forum page is there is a sticky sections on the first page where you can find:
  • A guideline about the Small Basic forum
  • Reference to tutorial materials
  • Best practices and other information
I hope that this post helps and see you on the next post. Here are some other blog that you can read:
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
]]> Tuesday Featured Post: Learning With Fun https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/tuesday-featured-post-learning-with-fun Wed, 05 Sep 2018 22:43:45 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2795 Challenge of the Month - July 2018 from Small Basic Forum. This forum post is about how you can start learning Small Basic programming and more more importantly having a fun when learning programming.
Be humble. Be teachable. Always keep learning.
This forum is a good example of how one can start learning programming not only Small Basic but also other programming languages because the theme is the same learn with fun. If we look closely the details that is written in the post about this thread, first we will see that this forum post contains a collection of interesting programming challenges that is used to learn Small Basic programming. If i quote from the post,
"These challenges are intended for people who are learning to program for the first time or for those returning to programming who want to start using Small Basic. Some will be easy, some will be hard - but they will all make you think, and more importantly be GREAT FUN!"
We also see that this post also encourages the community members to share if any problem or issue they faced during solving these challenges so that a discussion can start and member's can learn from each other. Also if anyone has an idea for future challenges they can share it here so that challenges can continue in next month. Some of the programming challenges category from this post:
  • Graphics Challenges
  • Maths Challenge
  • Game Challenge
  • Turtle Challenge
With this forum post we can see that there are various ways of learning programming and one of them is with some interesting and fun programming challenges. I hope that this post helps and see you on the next one.
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
]]> Thursday Best Practices: Observing Solution and Providing Feedback - Finding Your Way In The Forums https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/forumninjas/thursday-best-practices-observing-solution-and-providing-feedback-finding-your-way-in-the-forums Thu, 30 Aug 2018 22:06:24 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/forumninjas/?p=2785 Tuesday Featured Post: Finding Solutions To Your Programming Problems. In the above blog post we can see that it talks about how Original Poster asked about whether there is an alternate and faster approach is available to his/her solution. Where you can see that both OP and answerer's both actively contributing to find a solution. And some of the answerers got selected as helpful post (one of the answers has 21 votes!) multiple times which is a big achievement for the answerer's because the solution that answerer's provided may helped many other community members to solve their issue. Which means your contribution does not stick to this single post rather then it helped many other people in the community in other words the solution is finding it's way into the forum :) . This achievement does not come automatically it requires a great "Observation" quality and based on that observation providing a "Feedback". So, if we look some theoretical description on this we see that, Observation is a fundamental way of understanding something in this case the issue OP posted and the code snippet. We see that answerer's of this thread observed OP's solution carefully and provided feedback with code snippet about an alternate better approach along with they also points out what is wrong in OP's code and what issue will occur in OP's approach. The feedback here the answerer's provided not just helped the OP but also other community members.
A few observation and much reasoning lead to error, many observations and a little reasoning to truth.
Observing Solution and Providing Feedback is a habit and a practice which can be learned, sharpened and improved. I hope that this post helps and see you on the next one.  
Thank You, -Ninja Sabah
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