**As a reminder and point of emphasis, this is not just about sheer numbers, but rather it is about increasing the quality of the forums for everyone involved, including ourselves. If we work hard, then the numbers will come, but we are not looking to purely add posts to the forum. We only want to see meaningful, well thought out responses that help the online community – both the thread creators and the rest of us who read the threads. Thank you!

**1^st milestone update on 9/1/2010. It’s only been 2 weeks, but I’m doing a pulse check to see how we’re doing. I think the results are amazing so far!

**2^nd milestone update on 11/7/2010. It has now been just under 3 months, and the impact has been huge. There have been more answered threads in the last 3 months than in all previous months combined before we started the Task Force. It’s absolutely not just due to the Task Force, but I believe we have helped spark a major upswing in quantity AND quality of responses…

Special Kudos to these Task Force members:

• Steve Curran, Corey Roth, Dave Hunter, Alpesh Nakar, Spence Harbar, John Ross, John Ferringer, Wictor Wilen, and Todd Wilder for all busting their tails to rack up over 500 points (honorable mention to Roland White for 499!).

In 3 months of work, here is the impact so far:

• Each of the 4 SP2010 forums have an increased answer rate of over 10 percentage points with SPD/InfoPath rising over 15 percentage points
• All 4 SP2010 forums are over 50% in answer ratio when none were over 45% when we started. 2 of the 4 are almost up to 60% overall.
• Each SP2010 forum has had a significant decrease in # of threads with no replies. The Visual Studio forum has dropped the most – by 5.63 percentage points – just above SPD/InfoPath at 5.42 percentage points. None of the forums are above 12% now.
• 6004 new threads have been posted and 4552 threads have been answered for an answer rate of 75.82%
• 4552 answers in 3 months equals 53.4% of the total answers given EVER in the 2010 forums and amounts to 114.7% of all answered threads prior to the formation of the Task Force
• Task Force members contributed 3420 posts and 1331 answers (38.9% answer ratio). This accounts for 29.2% of all answers during this timeframe
• Despite 6004 new threads being posted, the total # of threads with no replies has only gone up by 230 (3.8%)
• Answer rates for all SP2010 forums are above 72% during this span with Visual Studio leading the way at 81.4% followed by SPD/InfoPath at 78.8%

Due to lack of participation, the Task Force member list was pared down considerably. Anyone with less than 10 posts over the last 3 months was removed, though their contributions are appreciated. It is just very time-consuming to track so many people, so I’ve narrowed it down to so, since some are on the bubble, and I’d like to see continuous contributions.

We still have a long way to go, so let’s keep it up. I hope those who signed up and haven’t started yet are ready to get cranking, and I hope we get more all-stars to join – many are already doing it on their own, so I hope they decide to join the list. Keep rockin!

Ok, folks, the SharePoint forums at MSDN/TechNet seriously need our help. We have an amazing community that gives and gives through user groups, SharePoint Saturday events, major conferences, tons of blogs, tons of books, articles, newsletters, etc., but we have an incredible resource right in front of us that needs a lot more attention. Microsoft provides a set of forums for the entire world to benefit from, and there is an entire area devoted just to SharePoint. There is a pre-2010 SharePoint forum with 17 sub-forums, and there is a 2010 SharePoint forum with 4 sub-forums. These areas provide immeasurable amounts of valuable information to people worldwide who need to either learn about SharePoint or get a question answered. Unfortunately, though, our answer rate in the SharePoint forums pales in comparison to almost every other product category. We have thousands upon thousands of questions that have gone without a single reply and many thousands more without correct answers. The product team and the moderator team do their best to keep pace, but they can’t do it without us. We, the community leaders, community givers, and MVPs are the real people who drive this train, but there aren’t currently enough of us.

That’s why this is a call to arms. I know that not everyone can spend every day on the forums answering questions, but if all of us band together to give a little more effort than we have in the past, then it will make a huge difference. We have the 3^rd-largest MVP community, but we have one of the worst answer ratios. I’m ready to change that, but I need help. I need help from people who are already recognized experts – do you realize how exciting it is for a new person to see their question get answered by a 5-time MVP who also authored the book in their cabinet? I need help from people who don’t even realize they can help – if you do SharePoint for a living and are the expert to your client, then I guarantee you have knowledge to share that someone else doesn’t yet have. I need help from people who spend tons of time contributing to the community in other ways but haven’t considered the forums to be a valuable place to spend time – I’m telling you that this is very important, and it will be very rewarding to you and the people you help.

Now, here is the empirical data – just showing the 2010 forums for now – and here is our Task Force! We have a nice mix of wily veterans, occasional dabblers, and noobs. J

SharePoint 2010 just recently released, so there are tons of questions flooding in, but there aren’t many people answering yet. Yes, I know that it’s new, so not as many people know it yet, but I also know that there are many of you out there working with 2010 as much as possible, so I bet you know the answer to a lot of these questions. The goal is two-fold:

• Decrease the “No Replies” to under 10% in each sub-forum
• Increase the Answer ratios to 60% in each sub-forum

Both goals are easily attainable. We can start by going back through all threads with no replies by going to the individual sub-forum and clicking the No Replies filter at the top. Go through ALL of these to find ones you can answer, but don’t just reply for the sake of replying. Please provide valuable information or ask questions to further clarify the question in case it wasn’t clear. This will help us knock down the non-replied threads in a hurry. I will update the numbers every 2 months to show how we’re progressing. The 2^nd goal is not quite as easy, but it’s still very doable. To get this number up, it requires that we truly spend time providing or FINDING the right answer. There are many times where I don’t know the answer off-hand, but I’m able to go into one of my environments to test and verify, then I give an answer. For InfoPath questions, I luckily have access to the product team for getting tough questions answered, but I know some of you have great connections with the SharePoint product team and/or with other extremely knowledgeable people who can help get these questions answered more effectively. Your help is of vital importance…

So, what do we do? I need volunteers. Either send me a DM to @Warrtalon, or if I’m not following you yet, send a Tweet to the #SPTF hashtag that mentions me and your desire to join up. I will follow you to get your info and add you to the list. You can also click on my Contact page to email me directly. As people join, I will take a snapshot of their forum participation to date so that I can do cross-checks later. However, this is not about individual goals or thresholds. This is about the forum itself and us working as a team to make it better. It’s up to us to make this happen…

Thank you all!

Clayton Cobb

SharePoint Architect & InfoPath MVP