>Frankly, I see both sides of the issue here. You have access to and memory of lots of UT solutions, so it's understandable that you reference them when you answer questions. OTOH, too many references to other forums might give members the idea that those other forums offer a better resource, thus diminishing the forum you're in.
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>I think there is legitimate middle ground to be found. Linking to a solution for a tough problem makes sense. Linking to a solution for an everyday problem that can answered inline does not. (BTW, that's my view in general. I know that I learned a lot about using Fox by reading the same or similar solutions over and over back when I started. Having five links to a single message isn't as good as having five different people answer the same question, even if their solution is the same.)
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>Tamar

You're making some good points here. Before I comment, I'd like to do one step back and quote what Andy Kramek, moderator on the MSDN forum for VFP, wrote today. It was his opening sentence to Naomi, as you can see for yourself.

'Please do NOT refer to "for-profit" sites - like the Universal Thread - in replies on this forum.'

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1552731&SiteID=1

There's an interesting phrase in it: "for-profit" sites. Andy is clearly of opinion that this is essential for his warning of Naomi. He thinks of sites as commercial and other sites as non-commercial. There are two questions that come to my mind here:

1) Are sites like UT, Foxite and MSDN indeed either (fully) commercial or (fully) non-commercial?

2) Is it a valid reason for moderating messages?

Andy thinks that UT is commercial, whereas Foxite and MSDN are not. But this is true only to some extend.

a) UT is the income of 3-4 people only. All paid memberships only serve to provide these people a living. Therefore these people can afford to, and actually do, spend many hours each week servicing and extending this website.

b) The UT community consist of paying members and not-paying members. There is not a situation where non-paying members are completely unable to get help and insight in the archives.

c) The UT community provides the answers, not the UT management.

d) There are many knowledgeable people among the UT members (paying or not).

e) Foxite does not have paying members, but it actually does generate some income for the owner. The site contains quite a lot of google adsense content.

f) The MSDN forum is from a very commercial company and is actually only there as a service point that serves a market strategy and should also give relief to the company's support department.


I'm not entirely sure how the situation is in other countries, but in the Netherlands we have three kinds of tv-stations. Those we have to pay for, those that have free access but have commercials each 10 minutes and those that are paid for by us all, via taxes (and even they have commercials). Now, tell me, which ones are for-profit and which are not? And does it matter when chatting about a news item that was broadcasted by one of them?

I'm quite sure that Andy is plain wrong in his interpretation of the MSDN rules here. Eventually Eric has a point when he decides that references to a COMPETITOR must be prevented, but this cannot possibly have been the intention of Bill Gates, when he said yes to the MSDN forums. Those forums should allow references to ALL other forums, commercial or not, as long as it serves the target of the MSDN forums: GIVE HELP TO THOSE WHO BOUGHT AN MS PRODUCT IN USING THAT PRODUCT.


Tamar, it is at this point that I'd like to fit in your comments. The UT is a very successful forum, with indeed a lot of answers in its database. (Again, ALL answers were provided freely by the community.) You are right that even one person alone might provide references to the UT to almost all questions in other forums and that this would endanger the viability of the other forum. Although some might argue that this is a consequence of a free market, I'm inclined to say that this is not what we, the community, want in the long run. We are best helped with several forums. There should not be tens though. But, let's say, five forums (apart from language specific forums) is a good thing. And those forums should be protected.

You proposed a rule that sounds reasonable enough to me: 'Linking to a solution for a tough problem makes sense. Linking to a solution for an everyday problem that can answered inline does not.'

Your other remark also makes sense. There's no benefit, rather it will obscure things, if many links to solutions are given. One fine link should be enough.

So, now we have already two fine rules. I think it's time that site owners try to come to an agreement. And the for-profit argument is far less an issue than Andy (and Eric) think.

BTW, I really hope Andy jumps in here. Therefore, I checked his name too in the 'forward a copy' section.