Microsoft is replacing MSDN and TechNet forums with Microsoft Q&A
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Microsoft has been slowly dismantling its MSDN and TechNet blogging platforms for the past year-plus. This week, Microsoft introduced something meant to replace the MSDN and TechNet forums: A preview of Microsoft Q&A.
Microsoft officials said they are making the switch because its MSDN and TechNet forums are outdated, according to a Frequently Asked Questions page about the new Q&A site.
The new Q&A experience is part of the larger docs.microsoft.com platform. It is designed to offer "relevant and timely answers to your technical problems from a community of experts and Microsoft engineers." The new service will allow users to follow posts, tags or people to get information; provide suggested answers as users type their questions; and the ability to bookmark content for future reference. Q&A uses the same user authentication as Microsoft Docs and Learn. Experts will earn Reputation Points for answers they provide.
Microsoft published a blog post on October 29 describing the Q&A preview in more detail. (Thanks to MSpoweruser.com and
@WithinRafael for the link to the post.)
"A migration of a resource this size is a massive undertaking. To ensure a smooth transition and minimize any disruption for users, we've broken down the migration into multiple phases. The goal is to complete the migration by mid-2020," according to the post.
As of this week, Microsoft has a limited set of topics that are covered by Q&A. They include Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory Domain Services, Azure Active Directory B2C, Azure Information Protection, Azure DevTest Labs, Azure Lab Services, Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Service Fabric, Azure Web Apps, Universal Windows Platform and Partner Center API. The plan is for the team to continue to add more topics over the coming months.