But since it was Marcia who was kind enough to make the post - this is a week plus long thread that has thrown mud on the recipient, mud on the process, mud on some MVPs, and mud on others who support the process and how the award was given.

You may perceive it that way. Others may observe that some people think *they* are the community and we are just the cattle- and naughty cattle at that, stirring up the mud to put mess on community shoes.

All I am saying is I will put my energies into answering technical questions, help conferences succeed and thrive, and develop cool solutions I can share with the community through VFPX before getting entangled in a free-for-all battle to take sides in some negative campaign to do one thing or another in the Fox Community.

I think you did a great job with SWFox and I'm sure you answer plenty of questions and do plenty with VFPx. But how does that translate to "ownership" of a community award? And why should there be a battle about it? Perhaps you'd think differently if Kevin Goff and Rod Paddock had given themselves the right to hand out VFP Community Lifetime Achievement awards and had selected John Pedersen for the ultimate platinum version. Please accept that objections are to the *process*, not an attack on the recipients.

For my part, if the community wants to hand out lifetime community awards we may prefer them to go to people like Ed Rauh or Drew Speedie whose "lifetime" contributions are eternal, but I have no intention of "battling" to have my opinion heard. So you go ahead and run your "community" award your own way, and I'm sure it will have the impact it deserves.