About this Forum

[jott27]

For some reason my avatar shows that I joint this forum on Apr 18, 2014. My first post was only made in the early part of Jan 2019. Up until this date I never had any reason to contact this forum. Since then, I wrote over 40 posts and I got to appreciate the usefulness of this Forum.
My sudden interest was kindled by the desire to find out as much as possible about the workings of my newly acquired SP6, but due to the kind help I got within the short time, I would like to find out more about the makeup of this Forum.
Here are some questions:
Who owns the forum ? Is there a direct tie in with Microsoft ?
Who are the people who have executive duties ? Are they elected ? How are contributors rated ?
There seems to be some hierarchy , ranging from new member, to OP(whatever this means), to various degrees of administrators. Who assigns these designations?
I would appreciate to receive anything else that might be useful to know about this forum.
I will try to do my best to contribute useful information on my own , as in due course I am bound to find some.

 

[sharpuser]

Hello again @jott27

I thought I might make the first go at answering your questions. This “thread” or topic was just now started by you, the OP (original poster, or author). You will see "OP" next to your Avatar on the left.

In general, a thread started by an OP asking questions is not satisfied (resolved) until the OP is satisfied.

Who owns the forum ?

This forum was started by @wicked, a volunteer with a wealth of experience with Microsoft, who designed it to support Surface enthusiasts.

Is there a direct tie in with Microsoft ?

No. Microsoft has its own support groups, which would generally have questions “officially” answered by Microsoft representatives. Very valuable, but having public enthusiasts answer questions frankly and more freely, from a wider scope of experience is also helpful.

Who are the people who have executive duties ? Are they elected ? How are contributors rated ?

Please click MEMBERS
Notable Members | Microsoft Surface Forums
near the top of the page to list membership and “Staff”. All are volunteers. Most senior volunteers, mainly the "Administrator" @jnjroach, carefully recruit other “moderators” to help keep the forum helpful, secure, and constructive. Candidates generally show skills in Surface, Microsoft, communication, and willingness to help. Contributors, the ones whom are the whole reason for the forum, are not “ranked”, however on the above Members link you can see how often members’ posts are “liked” by others.

There seems to be some hierarchy , ranging from new member, to OP(whatever this means), to various degrees of administrators. Who assigns these designations?

“OP”, as answered above, referring to the Original Poster or the Original Post itself. And as a rather frequent contributor (frequent OP), you are helping others around the world, so thanks for that!

You may want to read here for more insight as to the origin and mission of Surfaceforums.net :
New Member Introduction & Site Assistance

The hope is that those with more experience are willing to give to others, and those with troubles or questions or failures or clever solutions share with all, hopefully making us all smarter in the end.

 

[jnjroach]

Who owns the forum ? Is there a direct tie in with Microsoft ?

We are an enthusiast forum which is run through a consortium that runs other enthusiast forums called Forum Foundry. We have no direct affiliation with Microsoft but they are aware and familiar with us and we have had some of their people participate. Professionally Microsoft is my biggest customer.

Who are the people who have executive duties ? Are they elected ? How are contributors rated ?

There are paid people who select community members to act as Administrator or Moderators (all of the people you have interacted with are volunteers)

There seems to be some hierarchy , ranging from new member, to OP(whatever this means), to various degrees of administrators. Who assigns these designations?

The forum software uses post count and likes as well as other interactions to move your status - OP stands for Original Poster so we can easily keep track of the person who started a thread.

 

[sharpuser]

Regarding the date you joined the forum, it appears your first post was indeed 10 Jan 2019. Perhaps on that day your Surface was still being configured, and showing the wrong date, or some other glitch happened. So you appear to be a seasoned contributor!

 

[jott27]

Hello again @jott27

Thanks, this was very informative and answered most of my questions