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Are Tech Support Sites like Asp.net and MSDN Forums Sticky?

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I hear from some folks inside Microsoft that sites like the MSDN forums aren't "sticky", that people don't keep coming back to form a "community", and that they are purely transactional in nature.  I don't buy these statements one bit.  Here is someone else for whom the MSDN forums have become sticky for. 

https://spaces.msn.com/drsql/Blog/cns!80677FB08B3162E4!892.entry

Have you seen the MSDN Forums yet? They are located at:
https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN and are pretty good. They are sort of a sister to the NNTP newsgroups at msnews.microsoft.com, and I have been spending most of my online time on them, specifically in the Transact SQL group: https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=85&SiteID=1 .

As to which is better, NNTP (classic usenet style newsgroups) or the Forums, I won't get into that religious debate here (I do get into it in other places, mind you, just not here) but after giving them a try there is one thing I have started to like about the forums. Portability. I can check messages at home, at the office, and even on my PDA phone when I am supposed to be paying attention to something else (like the other people at a lunch table, for example.)

For this reason I have put the Forums at the top of my current list of places to visit and answer questions and I hope to see a few of you drop by too.

What do you think?  Are tech support "communties" really sticky or not?  Do you go to sites like this for 10-15 minutes a day to browse even if you don't need to?  If so, why?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2006
    They are sticky for those who want to answer questions, otherwise, they are only a means to get a question answered and that's it.
  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2006
    I'd say you're both right... forums aren't as "sticky" as a chat channel/room but they aren't totally temporary.

    I'd say a large amount of people who join a forum may only go to the forum when they need help.  As one's skill matures and you become the kind of person to answer other people's questions.  Currently there is only 1 forum (msfn.org) I go to regularly just to answer questions and read what's going on.  

    Unfortunately I believe there is a turning point, there are some other forums/chats I use to go to and when I got so skilled in the subject the users could never answer my questions I started to lose interest in them and left.

    I'd called web forums semi-sticky but I think they are a huge improvement over USENET as the average person doesn't even know what Usenet is.
  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2006
    I firmly believe they are sticky.  I swing by several times a week and browse.  Sometimes I am looking to see if I can answer a question, sometimes I'm just curious what questions are being asked.  I really like the improvements which have been added to the forums as well.
  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2006
    David: So says the top answerer. :-) Couldn't sticky apply to people that read as well? If they keep coming back?

    Travis: Any technical chat rooms you know of that are sticky?

    Mickey: Your the example of the reading sticky part.
  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2006
    jledgard: imho all technical IRC chat rooms are sticky, there's a few I go to and the entire crowd are regulars ( on Efnet #webdesign, #html, #c#, etc)
  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2006
    After 15 years of developing software in the Bill Gates space I think it is fair to safe that nothing is sticky.

    People come and people go. Technology keeps moving.

    Most people hang around for a bit to learn what they need, and then they say 'thanks for all the fish' and then depart.
  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2006
    I used to answer questions from gotdotnet's newbies forum for a bit. What made it easy was email notifications: if you subscribe to a forum you'll get all new posts in the form emailed to you. When I got a question in my inbox if I had time and inclination I'd go answer; if not, I could just let it go. However that only works well if it's low traffic.

    How about a similar mechanism: I subscribe to say the Visual C# forum and every day - ideally at a time I configure, say lunch time in my timezone - it mails me a summary of new questions in the last 24 hours, highlighting questions that are still open / unanswered?
    That way I can still get involved passively, and the forum sticks to me whether I like it or not :-)

    I haven't played with MSDN forums for a while so if you've already got something like this, sorry. But I can't see one.
  • Anonymous
    March 31, 2006
    Rup: At the moment there is no e-mail notification like this for the whole forum, but there are RSS feeds for each forum on msdn.
  • Anonymous
    March 31, 2006
    Ah, thanks - I hadn't noticed. I'll hop on a few feeds and see if I can answer anything!
  • Anonymous
    March 31, 2006

    So Josh Ledgard and I have been having a discussion around what makes a sticky community experience. ...
  • Anonymous
    November 10, 2006
    So Josh Ledgard and I have been having a discussion around what makes a sticky community experience.