INETA Community Champion Again
Each quarter, INETA recognizes community leaders with its Community Champions Award. I am honored to be a recipient in the second quarter of 2011, having won in the same quarter last year. If you are an active leader in the .NET community, I encourage you to participate in this recognition program. Thanks INETA for all you do for the .NET community -- groups and leaders.
Microsoft Community Contributor Award
Yesterday I got a nice surprise in my inbox from Microsoft. It was an award (a fairly new one) given for contributions to the online community -- specifically the MSDN and TechNet forums in this case. The details of the award follow. Just wanted to say thanks to Microsoft for the recognition. It's an honor to be a part of a thriving technical community.
About the MCC (Microsoft Community Contributor) Award
Through the Microsoft® Community Contributor Award, we express our thanks to individuals who freely volunteer their time and energy to help improve the Microsoft online technical community experience for others.
More and more technology users are seeking ideas and solutions for enhancing their technology experience through online resources. At Microsoft, we help our customers find answers when and where they want them through online forums such as TechNet, MSDN® and Answers.
Today, up to 4,000,000 people gain valuable information through Microsoft online forums--and that number is growing.
These valuable resources are enhanced by the contributions of Microsoft Community Contributor awardees, who help other participants in a range of ways, such as providing helpful answers, translating online resources into local languages and serving as moderators.
Source: https://www.microsoftcommunitycontributor.com/overview.aspx
I’m a SharePoint Overflow “Fanatic”
This weekend I apparently became the first person ever to earn a Gold badge on SharePointOverflow.com when I earned the "Fanatic" badge. The badge does not really speak to my participation or problem-solving abilities (the reputation metric does that), but it does speak to my consistency in visiting the site.
I mistakenly reported on Twitter that I had earned the "Enthusiast" badge, but that was weeks ago. James Love jumped in quickly to set me straight on the badge name.
If I ever make it to the UK, I hope to meet "Jimmy" in person. We have tag-teamed a few answers in the forums together...the guy knows his stuff. You talk about a "Fanatic" -- the guy has earned an incredible reputation on the forum seemingly overnight. He darted up to the top 4 in reputation in record time. That, my friends, is a "Fanatic." Still, I'm honored to be in such good company.
I thought it would be a good time to follow up on my July post on Comparing SharePoint Forums. I'm obviously enthusiastic and even fanatical about SharePoint Overflow. I have visited it every day for over a hundred days -- both answering questions and asking questions. One of my questions was recently answered by a newbie on SharePoint Overflow for which I am grateful. A more difficult question about Excel Services has been posted since August 20 and has no solution (although apparently information I included in my question was able to help another reader). The question has had 291 views on SharePoint Overflow in just over two months. I posted the same question on the Microsoft SharePoint forums on the same day. It has had 674 views there and, although one thoughtful person tried to help, still no resolution. I would have thought it would have fared better on the Microsoft forums since the product teams are said to monitor those forums as well.
So I have been staying active on both forums still -- and there are still things I like about both of them. However, I find that I do gravitate to SharePoint Overflow on a daily basis, so if I had to choose a favorite it must be my favorite. I still appreciate the fact that SharePoint Overflow has only one forum for all questions, and I still cringe every time a moderator on the Microsoft forums moves a question to a different category or spends more energy correcting a user on the proper way to post a question than on providing a solution (although they are necessary evils considering the current taxonomy). On the other hand, I hope that more people will start participating on SharePoint Overflow by posting questions/answers and by voting for questions/answers they found helpful.
Ironically, I may be the only one who even cares about comparing the two forums, and I really do like them both. So that really makes this whole exercise a little futile. I wish I could say I only brought it up because I was bored, but it has been at least a decade or two since I have had time to be bored. I guess I must have a little OCD in me after all!
