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This past weekend, I personally moved 24 threads from the MSN Messenger forum to either the WLM forum or others (within the MSN matrix). I’m not sure what we are going to do there, but we have to make things easier both on us and for the members.
I’m guessing it’s not only confusing to people, but it’s also a time consumer to move threads that are posted in wrong areas.
Personally, I wanted the MSN and WLM forums combined with a general title for the both, but EvilSeph disagrees, explaining that WLM was build from the ground up, and is a completely new IM program. Whether or not, WE are following that, the general public just believes that it is a newer version of MSN Messenger with a new name.
I’m not sure exactly how we should divide this. Do you guys think it’s just easier to be able to separate the forums the way they are and manage questions this way (specific errors, etc?) or is it too similar of the errors between to just combine them?
Obviously, 24 threads not moved is all of our faults for not paying attention or just not caring — but I think it’s something that should be addressed.
I think it would be easier to combine both MSN and WLM into one proper forum. Most people think of WLM as being a newer version of MSN anyway (sorry, EvilSeph) and it would be easier for me to see all the MSN and WLM postings in one forum, rather than having to switch between two.
Me too, I’ve been dealing with this rather annoying issue of moving/managing threads constantly. A thread named MSN/Windows Live Messenger would be much more convinient for everyone, whether or not its a completely new IM program. People still refer to it as msn, even I refer to it as msn many times from all these years that I’ve been using it.
Evilseph is technically right, but i know people who call it msn 8 :S
how about possibly moving MSN Messenger related threads to a subforum and making Windows Live Messenger the main one?
I still don’t see a purpose. The related issues are too much the same to even bother.
If this is a staff vote, I believe three knocks two?
I warned the community to use the naming conventions I outlined, and lack of doing so has resulted in this. An utter mess. You leave me no choice but to support merging the forums.
It is simply too hard for anyone to tell the difference between MSN (which no longer exists), WLM (which could mean a plethora of things like Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Mobile, Windows Live Messenger…you think that’s nothing? There are a ton of un-released, under-works services and products that use the WLM acronym as their “name”…), Windows Messenger (which we should not be supporting, by Microsoft’s request as it is now a corporate-only application)
I will be honest though. I am not happy that it has come to this.
Despite what people think, I know for a fact that MSN Messenger is not to be compared to Windows Live Messenger at all. The program is NOT AN UPGRADE. It is NOT modified code. They started from the ground up – calling Windows Live Messenger and MSN Messenger the same thing is an insult. Which brings forth problems unique to Windows Live Messenger. If a fix from MSN Messenger has been used, and the person just updates to Windows Live Messenger, that old fix WILL CAUSE MORE PROBLEMS. That being said, I need to stress that we DO NOT suggest that people downgrade to MSN Messenger just to see if the problem is fixed. They are not related, despite what they may appear to be.
That being said, mixing the forums results in utter confusion. But, I think the confusion the split is causing right now is worse than what we’ll face if we were to merge them back together.
I realise this means much more work for us, but if it’s for the better of BigBlueBall and the Windows Live Messenger community as a whole, then I propose we have a new category created that we can work on, filling with tried and true information before we decide to merge forums. Once we’re done with that, we should archive any of the old posts, just for reference purposes.
This means we start over with a clean section. One that is filled with ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE. If you’ve worked with me for a while, you will know this saying and know it well. A problem can be fixed quite easily, however if that problem is caused by misinformation, then we truly have a problem. I think that’s what’s happening to our section. There is simply too much inaccurate information being posted and the users and us staff even have problems discerning between what goes where and what knowledge is to be applied to what section.
Comments and feedback are encouraged.
I’m not sure if I made it clear or not, so I’ll make a short post here:
The reason why we are having this problem is because people have gotten used to using the wrong terminology, because the wrong terminology is accepted as the norm by the Windows Live Messenger community.
After discussing with EvilSeph, we renamed “MSN Messenger Support” to “MSN / Windows Live Messenger Support.” We also merged the posts from the “old” WLM forum into that, and removed the WLM forum. Finally, we created an archive forum that doesn’t allow new posts or replies. The really old stuff can be moved there.
Cheers!
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