Thanks Mr. Manners

Excellent advice.

>I would like to post a few pointers for all users of the Universal Thread (and any other online support forum for that matter). I think a list like this needs a place in the permanent documents list for all to read at any time.
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>These points represent my personal preferences, and so might not represent everybody's interests, so I encourage input , comments, and additions. But I think generally, they are good points to follow when using the thread.
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>- What is your question?
> "Anybody have trouble with printing complex reports?" Doesn't get your question answered. Do you really want me to answer "No"? or "Yes"? You probably are looking for an explanation to a problem your having. I need to know the nature of that problem. Forcing me to answer your post with "What problem are you having?" wastes both my time and yours.
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>- When asking a question, several pieces of information are required for anyone to be able to answer successfully.
> - What is the problem? This might seem trivial, but I often see questions phrased like: "When I close my form, another form is still open". This doesn't give me a clue as to what you are asking.
> - What do you want to happen?
> - What is happening instead?
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> Also, certain types of information are required to answer certain types of questions. For instance, if you are having trouble with the TABLEUPDATE() function, I'll need to know the syntax you're using to call it.
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>- Don't post your question more than once, under different categories. This will only serve to dillute the quality of both threads. IOW, I might waste time answering one of your threads, when someone else has already answered the same question in another thread. Also, a productive debate must be split over more than one thread.
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>- Don't start a new thread when continuing a problem. These "orphan" threads often refer to information posted in another thread that is difficult for the reader to find.
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>-Don't post two completely unrelated questions under the same thread. Different people have different areas of expertise, and they usually read threads that either interest them because they want to learn the answers as well, or because they think they can contribute. When a single thread contains more than one subject, we are forced to share "thread space" with topics we don't care about, or have nothing to contribute to.
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>- Give your post a meaningful Title. Titles like "Help!!!" or "Problem" or "Question" completely defeat the purpose of a title line. You might as well call your thread "Post". Be as descriptive as you can when naming your thread, so I have an idea before I read it if I can be of help. If you can, paraphrase your question in the title: "How to hide VFP SCREEN at startup".
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>- After somebody has answered your question, follow the reply up with something that tells the answerer if her post helped you or not. Posts not answered, or answered simply with "thank you" don't do anything to tell the answerer or anybody else if his suggestion really addressed the problem. Suggested replies:
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>"Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for"
>"Thanks, but that doesn't work. Any other ideas?
>"Thanks, but I already tried that, and it didn;t help."
>"That's what I was looking for, but introduces another problem..."
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>- Be conscious about who you include in your replies. If you posted a question yesterday, and I jumped in with an off-center comment or suggestion, I don't need to be CC'd with every single post in the thread. When you post a reply, go down the list of people who have participated in the thread, and only include people that you think might be interested in the post. Don't just go down the list and check everybody, even though you have no idea what or when they contributed to the thread. The UT has a feature that lets readers mark which threads they are interested in. If they want to read every singe message in the thread, let them mark the thread themselves. Some people participate in a LOT of threads here, and readin relevant message takes a LOT of time. Be courteous, and don't fill my box with junk.
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>- If someone answers one of your questions, don't follow up with a personal message, or worse, an e-mail message. This defeats the purpose of the UT: group collaboration. I might not be the best person to answer your question. Alsom if we resolve your problem in a private manner, we have robbed the rest of the membership from the benefit of knowing the resolution. Also, resolving questions in private prevents the helper from the public recognition that they deserve. If you want me to solve a problem for you in private, I will need your billing information, because you have just become a client, and you can pay my hourly consulting fee.