>For starts, to Ed Rauh, most of us realize how that people get award MVP status solely based on past contributions. What you need to realize is that for the neonate just coming to a newsgroup, the MVPs are regard as gurus if you will, because they have been recognized by MS. They expect these gurus to continue providing accurate information in their speciality while they have the MVP status. It goes back to that whole human belief that past performance will predict future performance. That the MVPs do not see themselves as this does not negate the fact that the sentiments and expectations exist. Please do not see this as an attack. I am just trying to explain how the newbies and lurkers view MVPs.
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I can't speak for all MVPs, but the ones I know, especially the crew of relatively new MVPs who were cultivated here on UT in the past 18 months, haven't changed their participation, and the quality of their offerings has not changed. The same can be said for the consistently excellent input from old hands like Jim Booth, Dave Frankenbach, and the rest of the MVPs who seem to have dropped anchor here. There's been a lot of disagreement recently, but the people are still participating. I'm sorry to have seen the situation degrade as badly as it has; JVP's participation here will be missed by me, if for no other reason than there are few if any other equivalently qualified individuals when it comes to things like ADO and VFP hanging around here. Fortunately, I know where to hunt him up if I get stuck.

>I for one am sorry to see the blue envelopes go away. To me this is as much of an injustice to the MVPs as when MS tried to remove the program entirely. It is not as much an issue of MVPs no longer getting free PUTM benefits as it is to not be able to tell who is an MVP. Like it or not, when a newcomer to the forum asks a question, he/she has no idea what the credentials of the respondants are. Seeing the blue envelope of an MVP (once the newcomer figured out what a blue envelope was *grin*) was at least an assurance that the person responding has known what he/she was talking about in the past. Sure MVP is no guarantee of accuracy, but given the chose between taking the advice of someone who you bumped into in the hall and the person who has worked extensively with the tool for years, which would you take?
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Melissa, truth be known, the MVPs' requests were at least part of the reason that the blue envelopes went away. It's unfair that we should be labelled as having to adhere to any different standard of behavior, or that we should be seen as any more or less authoritative than the value given by our answers. To some extent, that blue envelope was a bullseye painted on my back; all sorts of unreasonable assumptions about my on-line behavior, or my willingness to have people send me code and expect me to look it over and fix it free of charge, and it opened me up to criticism for having opinions about things that didn't fit other people's perceptions of what an MVP was supposed to be.

MVP status doesn't change the value of the answers provided by the people who got the award (did the value of my mesages change back in October?) It doesn't serve as a promise for kinder, gentler online demeanor. I didn't sign a secret pact with the Evil Empire agreeing to say nothing but good things about the MS product line. Pure and simple, the MVP award is recognition of past contributions - if it said anything, it said that MS looked over what I did in the past and felt that stuff had significantly greater value. It meant that what I said in the past met their standard of measure for what MVPs should be doing.

>The free PUTMs for MVPs were a good incentive to keep the MVPs visiting the UT. I know most have just paid up for a PUTM and continued on, but what of those who have left? Many may say good riddance to some, but consider the input they have given over the years. Even if they were controversial, controversy is good. It keeps the community from becoming homogeneous and blind to new or innovate ways of doing things. I can see both sides of the issues here, but I can't help feeling that we've, as the saying goes, cut off the nose to spite the face.

If you want Michel to reconsider his position, send him private email asking him to do so. It's his business, and his decision, and it's not our place (or at least not my place) to tell him how to run his business. If the value of UT access drops because the people who make it work leave, then fewer people will pay to get the benefits of PUTM. It's a vicious circle.