Andre..

>What utter complete nonsense.

>FWIW it's obvious you've never used Ozwin which kicks the pants off the interface here for speed, functionality, archival storage, searchability, sortability, threading, not to mention it isn't disabled to 60% of users like this place is.
>

As for the people themselves, I agree that there are high-calibre folks that frequent CIS. The list of people you enumerate is representitive of the good people that frequent CIS. Please do not infer personal insults from my opinion. They simply are not there...

As for OzWin... I never liked the software. In this day and age when I try to install as little software as possible, that is exactly what I need, another program to access an online forum. FWIW, OzWin is not CIS, rather, it is a 3rd party product. Let's stick to the rules of engagement shall we... We are comparing UT and CIS, not the UT, CIS, and any third off-line readers that hook into CIS. If anything, you helped to make my major point with respect to interface. By your own words, you need to go outside of CIS to get the feature set that you get with the UT natively. If you want to bring OzWin into the fray, then I would suggest comparing it to the UT off-line navigator. Personally, I don't use it. Why? Because everything is on-line. What a great facility we have in that no matter where I am, as long as I have net-access, I can not only get onto the UT, I can go back to day 1. If everything is on-line anyway, why the heck do I need archives, unless of course I wish to do off-line work.

As for a disablement of features, do you not have to pay a fee to CIS? Do you not have to pay for OzWin? I don't see the point you are attempting to make here...

As for speed, it is much better than it used to be. The people have spoken loudly, and the mgt listened... You can't ask for much more than that...

>
Secondly, the forum merge is far from the disaster you claim it to be. You just don't have a clue, John. By your own admission you haven't been regularly there in four years. What is is, in reality, is all the MS development products are accessible in one GO word, and furthermore Fox still has several sections of that forum. It's really not all that different than it was before December when the merge happened. Furthermore with OzWin you can manage each sub-forum independently, just as before, so in a practical sense it's no different.
>

I still lurk up there and read the messages. Folks by and large are not too happy with the turn of events. Everything packed into one forum is not an optimial set up IMO. And, with respect to the community/chatter aspect, I know for a fact that many folks are not happy with all of the communities being lumped together.


>Thirdly the signal to noise ratio on the CIS fox forum is much higher than it is here. I mean, there is just no comparison. It's an order of magnitude better. Here the culture seems to be if you aren't sure of the answer, then give it anyway. Over in the Fox area of CIS, you rarely get a half-baked answer like "I think there is a file in the files section here that will do 'ya". Also here you are to get "See file number ###" with a link that is only accessible to PUTM, which means a goosechase. On CIS you are far more likely to get "See Specific_File.Zip in the libs". It's been like that since Lisa Slater would wax people for not researching answers properly back in the 1980's and early 90's. Nobody here ever has the guts to say Egbert, you jerk, don't be so lazy, give a full correct answer or please, shut up.
>

The signal to noise ratio phrase is the biggest, most over-used cliche today. You are correct that at times, there are folks here that should stay on the sidelines as opposed to throwing out answers for the purpose of boosting one's message count. However, CIS has its fair share of innaccuracies as well. The UT IMO, is much better in this area. Chatter pretty much stays in chatter. The bad posts notwithstanding, you are just as likely to get the correct answer here on the UT as you are on CIS.

As for folks up here not having the guts to be candid, you obviously have never read many of my posts...< bg >...

As for files on the UT, they are available to everybody, basic and premier membership alike...


>Fourthly, the quality of support one can get from CIS from Tamar, Christof, Andy, Paul, Marcia, and others is totally first-rate, on-the-ball, timely, and without weakness whatsoever.
>

No argument from me on this. However, the support here is just as good here.