Jean-René:

Thanks for letting me know about your difficulties with Deja. My apologies - I had no idea this was an obstacle. Try going to this URL to register for My Deja, which is a free service: http://www.deja.com/my/pr/register.xp

I will also add a bookmark to this URL on the Discussion Discussion home page, so that others don't encounter the same problem. If you still have the slightest difficulty with registering on Deja, let me know and I will help you out.

Incidentally, you should know that My Deja is an incredibly useful, fairly new feature, which is an invaluable tool for searching all of Usenet including the archives of past discussions. Among its features there is a provision for monitoring saved searches and selected threads, and receiving automatic email notifications of activity. I only just discovered these additional features recently.

Of course, the UT has some of these capabilities for a long time, and it has many nice features not found elsewhere, not to mention a wealth of content and activity of interest to any serious VFP developer. But neither of these discussion systems is perfect, and there are still other approaches to online discussion worth investigating. Unfortunately, there tends to be a limit in the willingness of people to discuss the flaws, limitations, radical changes, comparisons with other approaches, and so on about a given discussion system on that discussion system itself. I can understand that: no one wants to bite the hand that feeds them, and the developers of these systems tend to be a bit defensive about their own pride and joy. I don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers, but I think there's a real need for some sort of frank, unbiased forum to discuss these issues in general. That's what the Discussion Discussion is about.

Mike

>The last discussion I will use is deja.com/~discussion2 because it to complecated for me. I spend 30 min. to findout how to create a account so I can vote for UT as the best discussion site.
>
>Why is it so complecated when you what to create a account on this site?
>
>>The Universal Thread has some nice features I haven't seen in other online discussion systems. How would you rate UT overall in comparison with other approaches? I haven't seen any promotion of the Univeral Thread's software or hosting services as a product or a general offering to the public. Am I missing something? What approach would you advocate for building online forums?
>>
>>Please post your reply under this thread, or cast your vote in the poll on the Discussion Discussion forum at:
>>
>>http://www.deja.com/~discussion2/
>>
>>Mike Asherman
>>mda@gis.net
>>
>>P.S. I loved the exploding whale!