>Len,
>
>>Thanks for your reply, David. Overall, I think you are right. The group & many of the people who have replied are helpful & the place has much to give & I hope to be able to return help, where I can (knowing full well, I may be jumped on for the slightest inaccuracy).
>
>That's an interesting perspective. One thing that encourages me to post answers is the knowledge that any inaccuracies will be corrected by someone else. When that happens, I don't consider it as being "jumped on" unless someone says "Dave, you're an idiot." or "I can't believe you said something that stupid."
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>When someone states a preference that is different from mine or makes a strong suggestion, I don't normally consider it an attack -- but then, I tend in general to be slow to anger.
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>I guess the point I'm trying to get across is that people will see whatever they have a tendency to see. Those who tend to take offense easily will probably see the UT as less friendly than those to do not. I've been very active here for over a year and I consider most of the regular posters here (Craig included) to be very friendly and helpful.
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>My suggestion to everyone is to soften up the rhetoric a bit on this discussion and see if we might have an outbreak of peace. :-)
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>>I did appreciate the reply from Jim Booth though. Rather than attacking me because of my views, accepted the need to get feedback on the impression given by the group.
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>I agree that the regulars need to be reminded to be gracious in welcoming new visitors.

David,

I agree with these sentiments and would like to add that my experience here has been that we are all emotional/personal beings ( to one degree or another so I don't subscribe to the "There's nothing personal in it ..." statement since virtually all communication between humans is personal :-) ) and often it seems a comment or comments may be made which were either quickly jotted off, or not completely thought out, or misunderstood or other such things which might come across as hostile, condescending or whatever. I guess sometimes they actually are intended to be that way, :-) but usually it seems that something is lost in the translation or the non-verbal medium which is not conducive to the "personal touch." Then escalation quickly ensues. :-) Due to a heavy workload right now I haven't had as much time to enter many threads recently and I generally try to not enter the "hot" threads :-) since it just seems to aggravate the situation, but I have received comments in the past that struck me a little odd and virtually every time I asked the individual about it, either publicly or privately, it's almost always been misunderstanding to one degree or another on my part regarding the other person's attitude towards me or what I posted, which was quickly resolved. Obviously it's part of life that there will be disagreements, sometimes strong ones, technical or otherwise, and personality clashes/conflicts, plus some plain old dislikes of individuals. And of course, who is there of us that does not struggle with their own egos? :-) We all want to be respected ... even those of us not among the acknowledged elite. :-) At any rate, if we can keep the lines of communication open, try to give the other person the benefit of the doubt as much as possible, and try to think thru our posts before pushing the send button ( unless of course you really want to insult the other person :-) ), hopefully we can help those newly entering the forum to not receive incorrect first impressions and the general morale of the forum will be kept as high as possible.

Bill