Steve,

>>The other direction would be an encouragement to expand a skill base, right?

I'm sure they would claim so. But the reality is that nobody has a monopoly on that incredibly simple idea. What grates is when certain people claim ownership of obvious ideas like that and then ram them down peoples' throats over and over. It is as if we are all stopped at a pedestrian crossing and somebody turns up every day saying "HEY YOU! You gotta stop here, bozo! Get your head outa the sand. That's right dummy! Look up there, see the writing on the wall, fool? Panties all in a twist, eh? Jeez, whatta bunch of dumbos I gotta look after every day."

In my case I endured extensive scoffing when I commented about autospanning local resultsets for dotNET. MS subsequently stated that this very issue is a priority for future dotNET versions. I "turned the other cheek" and hoped/believed that the agitators had enough self-awareness to calm down after such an arrogant clanger... no such luck. I now see that I should have rubbed their noses in it at every opportunity to deny them a clear run at people like Claude. That seems to be the only rule they understand. What a lovely effect these people are having on us.

Which leads me to my next point. I contend that these people answer 0% of technical questions about VFP. I contend that 100% of angry or rude e-mails in the VFP forum are either from a member of the tag-team or in response to them. That combination of statistics is completely undesirable IMHO.

>>It is also natural for them to want to share with those in the community what they are learning new. Really, I'd like to see some more "way to go" and "great for you, glad to hear you are doing new stuff" comments. And not sarcastic, as in "glad your learning (but go away!)", comments.

So when somebody gets called a fool they should respond with heartfelt praise? Come on, this isn't the angel forum. ;-)