I’m so Meta - TNWIKI as Forum for Technical Content
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a discussion forum for every piece of technical content on the Microsoft properties? There have been several attempts, including the TechNet “Community Content Control” launched back in 2006.***
TechNet Wiki users are trying some interesting experiments with this idea. For example, the wiki article PowerShell Script to Create a New Mailbox and Set the Mailbox Feature (Exchange 2010) is essentially a FAQ/Discussion page on this the Windows PowerShell script posted on the TechNet Gallery at: Create Mailbox and Set-CASMailbox Features GUI Script,
…noting issues, adding screenshots and so on.
The other “back channel” for communication about content (the “meta” content) is the edit comment stream on wiki articles, which you can view on the History tab. For example, on the wiki article
On the wiki article Troubleshooting Failed-Modification-Via-Web-Services I reversed the traditional troubleshooting content order, and *started* the article with the >80% case fix instructions, and added a highlight to aid quick scanning. I also added a flowchart graphic. Clicking on the History tab for this article shows the comment history (in LIFO order, sorry), so that you can see what others have added.
tonysoper_MSFT (View Profile) Wed, Mar 10 2010 12:53 AM Original. Comment: Added a highlight to focus the reader
Ed Price – MSFT (View Profile) Tue, Jun 14 2011 4:01 AM Revision 4. Comment: TOC
Chris Clayton, ILM admin (View Profile) Thu, Dec 22 2011 3:49 PM Revision 8. Comment: Changed the link for testing the FIM MA account from social.technet.microsoft.com/.../3ec55d52-df26-4c09-9d92-24716636e460 to social.technet.microsoft.com/.../how-to-use-powershell-to-test-the-fim-management-agent-account.aspx as the original thread was deleted.
***Search engines, and some humans, are occasionally confused by the fact that the community content control was at certain times and in certain places called the “MSDN Wiki”. The support alias was MSDNWiki feedback alias. Even though it is not a wiki, the Community Content Control is still supported (as of this writing) , and you can glean some valuable data (with proper filtering rules – I use Outlook Outlook 2010 rules against the folders monitoring this RSS feed.) Why do this? Well, anytime I search my mailbox on “FOO”, if there was a community update to a TN or MSDN article with that string, I’ll see it, even is the title of the original article was “BAR” or “BAZ”. Often, community uses this control to point out content or technical errors, and this can be quite handy to know.