Microsoft Q&A is getting a new update and moving to version 2. This is much more than an incremental bump, with Microsoft bringing plenty of changes to the service.
For example, Microsoft Q&A is getting a new UI, new tools, and new functionality. The new update was announced this week by Community Manager Richard Hay on Twitter.
We launched Microsoft Q&A v2 last night and you can now find improvements to Q&A on Microsoft Learn that make it easier than ever to get high-quality answers to your questions about Microsoft technologies through a global, community-driven platform.
— Richard Hay (@WinObs) January 12, 2023
Changelog
- “An improved user experience that is optimized for readability, improved workflows and efficiency.
- There is now support for themes. The view will default to following the one in place by the operating system but users can manually change the setting with support for those making use of High Contrast for accessibility.
- The team also updated its web editor for entering questions and answers with a new feature loaded Markdown interface. Users can drag/drop, copy/paste, or browse for image attachments to include their posts as well as entering preserved formatted content pulled from other places.
- Users will now note there is a unified search option across Microsoft Learn content and the Q&A platform for quicker access to solutions. The new Search will show a question preview of up to 255 characters which should be enough to know whether links are useful before clicking. The Q&A team is looking to revise the filtering and sorting capabilities of Search soon.
- The team introduced a content rating system that users can utilize to identify useful answers as well as a mechanism for switching ratings to better answers down the road. Any authenticated user can click on I have the same question control, so users answering can find out the most popular questions.
- For the social butterflies out there, the Q&A team added support for sharing answers outside of the Q&A platform.”
Microsoft Q&A
If you are unfamiliar with Q&A, it was launched in 2019 to replace TechNet and MSDN forums. It is an extension of the Microsoft Docs service. As such, Q&A will use the same authentication process. On the platform, users can post a question and use tags to group them with other questions in the same field.
Answers given on the platform will gain reputation points for the users. Voting on answers will also get points.
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