Nancy,

>> By my knowledge your not paying either.
>
>Don't even go there. As an MVP JVP shows that he does give back to the community significant effort. So, yeah, I'd say he pays.

Well IMO there are others too who deserve to be treated the same way as a MVP, but are not (yet) reconized in that way. I know those people deserve to have a free ride, but this attitude of JVP seems to be bugging me here. I got the perfectly right to speak up as much as he does. That I'm a basic member is not an issue at all. There is no written rule that if you're a PUTM you have more right to speak up than others. I've got the perfectly right to correct him if he's wrong as i feel free to correct any MVP when he/she is wrong.

Being a MVP is a recognition by MS having excelent skills, knowledge, being very helpfull to others etc. Note this is a RECOGNITION by MS, not saying that others have less of these properties. To me, for example a person called Erik Moore has perfectly the same (or even better) qualities than the avarage MVP.

>>Wasn't the UT support to all people a major reason to continue the MVP program ?? By closing it less people can contact MVPs for support.
>
>I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but no, actually, the UT support was not the major reason the MVP program was renewed.

This fact by itself should be enough to continue the program, IMO.

>We certainly added our voice, but there are a whole LOT of people who spent 4 sleepless days getting the word out. You do a disservice to those people and it continues the parochialism we are prone to, I'm sad to say.

I never said that a MVP should pay for the site, and I truly believe that it's a good thing they don't have to pay their membership, but as mentioned before this gives you no right at all to be rude at people and make wrong assumptions about people who are *only* a PUTM or basic member. I know my strenghts (and weaknesses) within (VFP) development, but simply don't have the time an money to express them here in the UT. Having a tight knit frameworks in the dutch language makes it difficult to add a contribution to the files_section. Even a simple TaxTextbox class would take considerabe effort to documentate, translate and make it ready for a UT contribution. I don't know how other MVP's do it, but i work hard to get my projects done (earn money) and being a good husband, etc. The UT plays an important part in my life, but I can't affort to put more time in it.

I'm not speaking for myself, even if you get this impression, I'll be a PUTM as soon as I get my credit card. I'm worried about the future of the UT when it closes the site for basic members. I truly believe this would be the end of it:
-Advertisers might withdraw, because of less visitor
-Few newbies, as they'll likely choose another way to get free support
-As a result MVPs moving to other free sites, because there it's needed more up there.
-Result in the end: a Dead UT.

>>Let's not forget the world is larger and wider than the US. It's pretty hypocritic to pretend there are no people out there who have financial problems, and cannot pay for the UT. Excluding them seems just not fair to me.
>
>That's an excellent and true point, Walter. Are you saying you cannot afford it?

I can, but the thing that holds me from paying is that at the moment I don't own a credit card (few people do up here) and have bad experience with international banking transactions or otherwise.

Besides this, I used to be very comfortable with the basic membership. The only reasons that I choose for the PUTM is the advanced search mechanism, Private messages (now E-mail), and the offline browser.

Walter,