Thanks for the well thought out comments, Rox. Please understand that the remainder of the message is NOT pointed at you personally, I'm using your thread as a forum.

I hope everyone realizes that they can skip past a thread with content they do not wish to read. After all, there are technical threads that are a) too simple or b) too difficult or c) totally outside one's area of interest and noone feels the slightest compunction about skipping them.

The exception, of course, is the sysops who have to read a lot of garbage so they can understand what's going on. And, as has been said elsewhere, we're damned whatever course we take. So far we've tried to keep our intervention as minimal as possible: Move a thread to Chatter and allow users to skip the entire Chatter section in their profiles if desired, but don't impose censorship. Even if/when our rules are made clearer there will always be messages that hit the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable and people will argue pro and con.

Also, readers of the public messages don't see how many private emails are sent, both offical "UT to member" and personal "Friend to friend" messages discussing every one of the 'problem' threads and participants. "Doing nothing" publicly is not the same as "doing nothing at all"

Bottom line: Don't bother reading further if you hit a mesage subject you don't like.

Thanks,
Barbara

>I was away from UT for the weekend, I just spent the last hour trying to catch up and quite frankly I am dizzy from all the hot air. There is supposed to be a difference between personal criticism and constructive criticism. There is supposed to be a difference between debate and battery. There is suppose to be a difference disagreeing view points and personal bias. There is suppose to be a difference between on topic conversation and profane humor.
>There is supposed to be a difference between discussion and slander.
>
>Somehow it seems some folks have lost site of some of these differences IMHO, and the result is a big huge grey area where those with some flavor of bias or grudge or attitude flock to sling mud at each other and then consider it a justified discussion because somebody else started it or set out the challenge. Now before all the uptight members of UT jump to point fingers, I count atleast 8 people who have repetitively posted content in past few days that seemingly ignores any common sense to these differences. Sad part is, of those 8 people five of them I consider not only close colleagues but also close friends.
>
>Here's a few thoughts - when expressing constructive criticism in hopes of bettering something related to this developer community, keep the personal bias out of it or else keep it private if that's not possible. If it's not constructive criticism but flat out criticism - keep it private no matter what. When responding to constructive criticism, if you have no role in improving the outcome of the topic at hand dont make matters worse by interjecting your own personal bias on one side of the fence or the other because that's what leads us to this huge grey free-for-all mudslinging area where nobody wins and nothing is accomplished. And if you are absolutely compelled to respond negatively to other negative comments, why not simply point out to the person what seems to be their bias as opposed instigating a pissing match where no one wins.
>
>Now with that said, I would like to know when is the first UT virtual meeting for Mud Slingers Anonymous? Will the chat engine be able to handle it? < r,d,& h >
>
>< smirk > And Yes... Before I get crucified up here I've been amongst the mud slingers in the past and I readily admit it. Similar to a remark by Mark M. recently about hitting preview and counting to ten, I've started emailing my posts to myself whenever my blood pressure is up. Then I give it 20 minutes, read the email, and usually laugh at my own attitude. It's a PITA to have a conscience but atleast it keeps my personality from harming my professional reputation on a regular basis.