>A helpful hint- don't look at the letters after anyone's name to determine their expert status, look at the content of their posts. You may or may not find a correlation.

Erik,

There is no question in my mind that those who have acheived "guru" status have rightfully earned it. I can honestly say that my own fears of sounding like an idiot kept me from contributing anything at all. After seven years of wrestling with the Fox, I am still not a guru, but I am senior level by now. It has taken me this long to feel comfortable about posting messages, other than in my beloved Mere Mortals section. As a long-time lurker, I did get a certain sense of cliquishness that can be off-putting to someone like me. Perhaps it is because the same people were the ones doing most of the posting. I've also been mildly berated for posting messages that were not 100% accurate. I don't have time to test all the code snippets I post, but the fear of being further berated prevented me from more participation.

By now, I don't care. I have paid my dues and I know what I know. Knowledge is simply a path we all walk down. Others may be further along, but we all end up in the same place. In that spirit, I have participated much more lately, and I hope others have benefited from my posts as much as I have benefited from the posts of others.