David in Devon wrote:


I've never known any other MVP lose their status on the Answers forums,
even when they die!

The old MVP program rewarded "helping people in a public
forum as a subject matter expert".

The new MVP program rewards "evangelism". In the
Guy Kawasaki sense. The people most able to meet
the requirements today, are "Microsoft partners"
and give dry lectures in public places. They're
the most likely people to receive an MVP reward.
Helping people is not considered to be the
right target now. It's more of a "sales activity".

If you look at the people listed as MVPs today,
look at their CV, they are more likely to look
like sales types, to the rest of us. And none of
them particularly have name recognition. It almost
looks like "automatic promotion for being a
Microsoft Partner".

It's also possible for a person to "decline"
a nomination, and tell Microsoft "look, I don't
have time for this and it's cutting into my
day job". Your first responsibility is paying
the bills, taking care of your own health, so
if a person feels overloaded, they can give
back their MVP and have it awarded to some
other person as a result. Nobody wants to put
tons of hours into countable activity as an MVP,
just to receive a free Tshirt.

Paul