Re: Extending the functionality of Word references/bibliography

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Hi Bob,

Yes, there are plenty of possible explanations, and the "couldn't cope with the volume" is certainly one of them. It's a difficulty faced by every customer-facing organisation with a large customer base and cost-free contact methods such as e-mail.

However, if Microsoft are not actually even looking at these suggestions and have no intention of responding to them through this mechanism, I really do think they should change the rubric in the relevant communities interface. I know that interface has been remarkably resistant to change, e.g. no plea to change "Mailmerge and Fax" to "Mailemrge and Fields" has ever been actioned :-) ), but I think it is a little unfair to advertise a facility that really no longer exists. Perhaps they could simply refer people to the facilities in the products instead.

While they are about it, perhaps they could fix some of the other documentation, e.g. to do with posters' ratings. Or maybe if they are going to try to "move" the Office groups over to the MSDN-style web-based forums format there will be a big change anyway.

I've never tried the newer feedback mechanism, for one reason and another, but would be interested to know if there are any stats. or even anecdotal info. about its use/effectiveness. From Microsoft's point of view, I doubt they are going to change or introduce features unless they have some pretty firm evidence it's on the menu of either a large number of potential upgraders, or corporates with large licence counts. To me, the interesting thing is that if, say, a body of academics wants to improve the citation mechanism (actually I have no personal interest in them at all), how do they best demonstrate the commercial or goodwill value of even considering such improvements.



Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

CyberTaz wrote:
Wow - Impressive research, Peter :-)

One "guess" on my part re the lack of Response from MS is that volume alone
prevents replying to suggestions, even though each may well be reviewed &
evaluated - but I would imagine that's rather obvious.

Another consideration, however, [perhaps supported by the time frames you
cited] is that the Discussions groups served as a primary channel of
communication earlier on. However, I believe the inclusion of the Feedback
mechanism in the software [via Options> Resources in 2007, via Help in prior
versions] has supplanted the Suggestions method of the Discussions.

... Just some thoughts based on my perceptions of how things seem to have
evolved on the Mac side as well.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones [MVP] Office:Mac



On 2/14/09 6:44 AM, in article esohpmpjJHA.4408@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Peter
Jamieson" <pjj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Since I have never seen a post from Microsoft in response to any of
these "Suggestions for Microsoft" posts, I thought I'd try to find out
which posts had received enough votes for Microsoft to respond to them.

I looked through all the groups listed "below" the office communities
page at

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx

and found the following (if someone knows a page where you can just look
up these stats, please let me know).

1. The posts visible through that interface go back to sometime in 2004
(there could be earlier ones- I didn't check every post!)

2. Over 3500 threads have been marked as "Suggestions for Microsoft." I
have not tried to group these threads by their start dates, but there
are certainly quite a lot of threads dated 2009, 2008 as well as earlier
ones.

3. 40 Threads are marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response". None
of those threads was initiated later than 2005 (early 2005, AFAICS)

4. Of the >3500 threads, the largest numbers are in
a. Outlook (over 43 pages/over 1050 threads)
b. Small Business Accounting (c. 30 pages/over 725 threads)
c. office (c. 16p/ over 375 threads)
d. Excel (c. 14 pages/over 325 threads)

5. Of the 40 threads marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft Response"
the largest numbers are in
a. Office (19 threads)
b. OneNote (11 threads)
c. Office Development (2 threads)

6. No other product has more than one thread marked as "Suggestions with
Microsoft Response"

7. In the Word groups, over 250 threads are marked as "Suggestions for
Microsoft". One thread is marked as "Suggestions with Microsoft
Response", and the initial post in that thread is dated early 2005.

8. I did not find a way to see the number of "votes" for any given response.


Of course,
a. some suggestions may not actually be "genuine" suggestions - they
could be rants etc.
b. many suggestions seem to have been "answered" by other
participants, e.g. perhaps a workaround was offered, or an explanation
whysomething cannot work in a certain way
c. just because Microsoft has not posted a response does not mean that
they have not seen the suggestion or done anything about it
d. for some products, the main discussions may well be considered to
be elsewhere
e. the large number of suggestions in the OneNote and Small Business
Accounting groups may reflect the fact that they are recent products
with a lively interest in the feature set.

All that said, my conclusions (not a surprise to many, I suspect) are that
a. the suggestions process has in effect been defunct for several years
b. if you think your suggestion is really worth making, I'm sure there
is no harm done posting it here, and you may see useful
discussion/counter-proposals, but it may be better to put your effort
into discovering a better channel for the suggestion. Unfortunately I
cannot tell you what that might be, but since you come from an
academic/research background, perhaps you ae in a better position to
find out :-)

Good luck!

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

Beau wrote:
Myself and many other researchers and academics worldwide would very much
like to see the functionality of Word 2007's References function extended to
the point where we could dispense with third party citation software such as
EndNote and the like. This could be accomplished by adding the following
features to the Word References ribbon:

1) CUSTOM STYLES. Add an easy, intuitive way to create custom citation and
reference styles. Upon opening the styles drop-down menu I should see entries
at the bottom entitled ³MoreŠ² and ³CustomŠ². Upon clicking ³MoreŠ² I should
be taken to a Microsoft website which has a very large list of (user
contributed?) citation/reference styles from different publications and
journals which are freely available for download. When I download a style it
should automatically be added to the Styles drop-down menu in Word. Upon
clicking ³CustomŠ² I should be presented with a new interface which enables
me to define completely (down to the last period and space) a custom style,
which can be saved and optionally uploaded to Microsoft¹s server for
retrieval by other users.

2) DATABASE CONNECTION. A button should added to the References ribbon
which, when clicked, opens a new interface which enables me to seamlessly
connect to one of a number of (both preset and user-definable) databases
(e.g., PubMed). I should be able to enter search terms to retrieve references
which can then be saved to a source file and inserted into my document.

Adding these two features to the Word References ribbon should satisfy the
needs of the vast majority of academics and scientific researchers that
currently rely on expensive software such as EndNote. If Microsoft can add
these features, it will add an enormous value to Word. Please consider.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=b5a5f511-1c0
9-476c-b8c6-49c12acba89c&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagement

.

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