Good Day All!

We are back with the Tuesday’s Featured Post where we discuss a Forum Post or a Forum Thread from the MSDN or TechNet Forums and then highlight the value that they added.

This week theme is about how a great forum post or discussion looks like and some key points from there what makes them great to continue long time. So, for this week pick for the featured post I have selected backup tool asked by wingers from Visual Basic forum.

So, you are probably wondering why there is 365 in the title of this blog Community Discussion 365. This is because the forum post that we will be looking into today is actually has around 1000 replies! splitted into 4 forum posts (282 replies + 78 replies + 676 replies + 48 replies) in total with 6000 views and continued for 2 years, yeah! long. 🙂

Here is the forum post where this topic got splitted into as the thread becoming long (one thread actually has 676 replies):

• backup tool
• backup tool (continued....)
• backup tool (revisited)
• backup tool (revisited) continued...

This forum posts is a good example of

• How a community discussion looks like
• How to respond to replies
• How to express your thoughts

"Words can inspire. And words can destroy. Choose yours well."

In this thread Original Poster talks about creating a tool more specifically a Backup Tool which will perform backing up process of specified folders to a chosen  different location for Keep it Safe. The discussion started by OP referring to another forum post answered by Frank L. Smith on related topic which does what OP wants 99% and want to modify the code as per requirement but it is not working as expected so in OP's word Any suggestions/advice/help that could be given would be much appreciated.

This thread discussion takes place mostly between the OP wingers and answerer Frank L. Smith as because the forum post that OP refereed was answered by Frank L. Smith

The first two forum post discusses about the solution to OP's issue

• backup tool
• backup tool (continued....)

And second two forum post discusses about a new improved versions of the solution.

• backup tool (revisited)
• backup tool (revisited) continued...

If we look closely in this thread we will see that besides discussing about a solution the participated members thoughts and expression in the reply makes this forum post great.

• Every replies here expresses politeness, gratefulness and thanking other for giving time and saying there's no hurry
• And if one is busy and has some things to take care of and will be late in replying then they also mentioned this. In this way member will be aware that he will be getting feedback as the dely is because other person is busy
• Participated members discussing in details with code so the issue is easier to understand what one is trying to say
• Keeps continue until they find a solution
• More importantly! when OP wants to discuss a new improve version both the OP wingers and answerer Frank L. Smith again started their conversation. Which explains how active these member are in the community
• And if you look closely how often the replies takes place in this forum posts you will see there is not much time difference, which indicates they are active and really eager to find a solution. This inspires others that if he/she provide a solution or feedback OP most like to try that solution and give a feedback whether it worked or not. Most often we see that replies take place after a long gap because members are busy and they make some time from their busy life to help the community.

So, my key points is from this thread is

• Always thanking other for their hard work
• Discuss in details about the issue and solution
• Be active in replying

With this forum post we can see that being active, thanking other for their hard work and discussing in details can lead to a solution no matter how delay it is. I hope that this post helps and see you on the next one.

Thank You,

-Ninja Sabah