Table of Contents

This article is collecting user feedback that should be available in a next generation Microsoft communities like forums, blogs, Wiki, Gallery...

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Legend

Use the codes below to indicare how important the feature is to you, as a community contributor. Add your remarks and reason in the comments when you add a priority code.

Code Identification Description
[P1] or [MUST HAVE] Priority 1, Must Have  Cannot work without
[P2] or [SHOULD HAVE] Priority 2, Important but not a must  Needed, but can be added later
[P3] or [NICE TO HAVE] Priority 3, Optional  Can work without
[KEEP] existing feature keep this feature, feature parity

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Shared features to all tools

General

  • All common browsers must be supported!
  • easy integration
    • one-click to create a wiki article from a forum thread (capturing forum topic an forum answer to Wiki article)

User Interface

  • User Friendly GUI,  which fit children and non developers as well
  • [MUST HAVE] Real WYSIWYG
  • Editor/GUI: Tags (auto+from list only Moderators can manage, not manual)
  • Editor/GUI: Support Languages + RTL languages (Language spanision?)
  • One click export of user owned articles
    • export in HTML (or other general) format
    • including images
    • (on top of the current GDPR privacy export in JSON format, from the user profile)

Localisation

  • Multi language support
  • Contextual translation and switch back to English capabilities as we have in Docs.

External (API) Interface

  • API for developers to
    • pull articles, forums threads (same as in stackoverflow), blogs content, statistics from all tools, ...
    • create analytics, weekly overviews, BI (page views, references), leaderboards, ...
    • etc.

Content editor

  • WYSIWYG editor is a must
    • by preference HTMl, but also other options like using using markdown languages )
    • Have the option to select either HTML / Markdown to edit the article
  • Attachment/content upload:
    • Scan files when uploaded
    • Scan for or block dangerous or marketing content (exe files, 3rd party software...)
  • Editor:: upload files should work fast and secured like any common website

Content management

  • [KEEP] piracy, violation reporting
  • [KEEP] do not allow normal users to delete content
  • [KEEP] report "candidates for deletion" (eg by using tags, as we do now)

Reputation

  • Only upvote, No down vote
  • No negative points
  • remove points when content is deleted

Interaction

  • Private Messages to user, OP or article author, without exposing private data
    • eg user contact form
  • Comments: appreciation, feedback, some people do not feel comfortable to make a change and they want to report it; social chatter due to lack of personal messages in MSDN today
  • Allow gamification (improve, highlight & promote interaction with and between users)

Security

  • Multi-factor authentication, captcha forany new
  • New user limitations
    • preventing new users from posting/editing content (as we have today, based on reputation threshold),
    • but in addition option to manually approve new authors, as we have in the MSDN forums today
  • permissions/privilege based on rules/roles
  • Sync with the MSDN users is a must (current users), prefer to based on the Microsoft key for all tools, which mean we use the same, central user account

Governance

  • Microsoft platform for credibility
  • CContent governed by the community
  • Distinction between Microsoft-authored content and community content

Functional / Technical management

  • Microsoft owned, community moderator managed
  • content administration & moderation by selected community users
  • technical ownership/management by Microsoft

Roles

  • Official Community Council which include a very small number of community representatives + Microsoft representatives (can engage directly with the team behind the scenes if needed and the communities users)
  • Microsoft owned platform, trusted community moderators fully manage content/User
  • Administrators/operators mainly from Microsoft employees but trusted admins/moderators from the community as well if needed - better then none. Including the blogs and if needed for forums in languages that there is no administrator from Microsoft
  • Trusted Moderators based on community (like today)

Rules

  • Rules: MVP and other unique groups can get more privileges (like using the API for developers)
  • Roles: Administrator (not moderators) can ban users without the need to contact the engineering team and wait for them

Ethics

  • [MUST HAVE]: easy piracy reporting
  • piracy protection
  • A checkbox for "Please let me know when you're going to sunset my many years' worth of contributions into oblivion"
  • A cast iron promise that contributions will never be thrown away 
  • Migration planning & migration support
    • Keep content as read-only or redirect
    • Clean up duplicated articles
    • Clear communication on expectations if content goes down

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Wiki

Business justification

What's the added value, or the reason for existence for a Community Wiki? In comparison/addition to 

  • other community platforms like Forums, Blogs, Gallery and ?
  • other "Microsoft owned" content like offical product documentation on Docs or Microsoft download center?

1. Community Wiki = added value to official documentation

The Community Wiki is not a replacement for the official Microsoft Documentation, but a parallel channel which is a must! 

2. Real life expert experience

The community uses and operates the Microsoft platforms in many more ways than the Microsoft product and support teams can.

3. Fast content creation

A wiki offers a fast way to create added-value documentation (compared to the orchestrated way of publishing official MS product documentation)

4. Community owned - Microsoft branded

It must be opened to all and be much more accessible & user friendly. It should work with the documentation, a bit like open source projects which have a "community version" and a "paid version" (for example it is very common in Linux OS).

Wiki specific Feature requests

  • See shared/common features
  • Comments: on editing, and on the content (same as today where we have two types of comments)
  • [MUST HAVE]
    • Full page width display

Wiki editor

  • Images
    • option to upload images, 
    • remove option to use external images,
    • option to use navigate and see all existing images and use them in the article 
    • [NICE-TO-HAVE]: bulk upload images
  • [MUST HAVE] Auto-features:
    • auto-creation of TOC (Table of contents)
  • [NICE TO HAVE] auto-feature
    • back to top link (eg point to TOC)
  • Basic layout options
    • limited font support
      • Normal text font
      • SourceCode/Script text font
    • H1-H5 header options (auto-added to TOC)
  • Template articles
    • Precreated layout
    • Allow administrators to add templates

Wiki Governance

  • [MUST HAVE] Keep the TN WIki community council
  • [MUST HAVE] Keep the TNWIKI governance model, best practices & guidelines (as based on Wikipedia model)
  • Piracy protection (as far as possible)

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Forums

Business justification

What's the added value, or the reason for existence for forums? In comparison/addition to 

  • other community platforms like Wiki, Blogs, Gallery and ?
  • other "Microsoft owned" content like offical product documentation on Docs or Microsoft download center?

Forum editor

  • option to upload images
  • Security: captcha for any new/edit article
  • Add poster/responder signature to post or response

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Gallery

  • Upload files, including compress files, images,  
  • block executable (.exe) upload
  • Q&a on gallery item
  • Allow posting
    • scripts (powershell)
    • office templates
    • samples (scripts, documents, ...)
  • block encrypted zip upload
  • scan zip files for content

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Blogs

  • blog deprecation announcements 
  • blog archival (lock for edit, but kept for a while, x YEARS) 
  • blog export option (common format to allow tranfer to author owned system)

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See also

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References

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