Here at Microsoft we like to talk a lot about "ownership" of things.  I myself can be either "business owner" or "community owner" of the MSDN Forums depending on the time of day and which way the wind is blowing.

Do I really own the forums?  Well not exactly, I don't sit on the platform team, so I don't own the development of the forums.  I don't sit in operations, so I don't own the servers.  I kind of own the community itself, but what does that mean?

Basically "ownership" is a way of assigning accountability.  I am accountable for doing what I can to make sure that the MSDN Forums are healthy, that its users are taken care of, and that the product groups that represent the technologies we have forums for are actively participating in them.  The image I like to think of is me as some sort of virtual "Colossus of Rhodes" with my feet bridging the gap between product groups at Microsoft and the user base out there in the rest of the world.  I need to represent each of those groups to the other one to make sure that we're forming a sort of contract around our responsibilities in our little community and that we're all happy with the results.  Sometimes I do a better job than others.

So that's how I "own" the MSDN Forums as a whole, but what does it mean to have an owner of a single forum?  It may surprise you to find out that we do in fact try to have a single individual responsible for each MSDN forum.  The forum owners may not be outwardly visible to the community they are responsible for, but they have an important role.  A forum owner is on the hook for ensuring that their team is supporting their forum the best it can.  They are also responsible for trying to engage the community and get people excited about their forum.

The thing to remember with all of this, is that the forums are an ecosystem, there are a lot of different involved parties, from us here at Microsoft, to you the users.  And the forums only function when there's balance in the community, overall, I think we do a decent job with balance.  Certainly there are areas we can improve, and I hope you'll tell me if there are ones I may not be seeing.  But in the spirit of community, it's definitely true that you all own the forums as much as I do.