Tamar

>>I think it's really important to keep in mind that the MVP award is granted for past service, not for the present. That is, when people received the award in the fall of 2000, it was for what they'd done from fall 1999 through summer 2000. There is no requirement that the recipients continue to provide support or that they continue to do it in the places where they had before.<<

In that case I'd like to know where current MVPs > L < and YAG shone forth during the 1999-2000 year. It is a reasonable question since I have been most impressed by them in the past. Surely you see it is frustrating and counterproductive to see them awarded MVP for "contribution to on-line community" during that period when I am unable to find them anywhere I look.

I have asked this question five times now, without reply. Yes they may not be there currently, but if I know where they were last year I can at least look in the archives for their pearls of wisdom.

On the other hand, if they are "life members" for contributions in the past, then "bravo to them" but why can't that be acknowledged so I can stop looking. In that case people will also need to justify the fairly personal attacks in response to suggestions that "life membership" and elitism is alive and well in the MVP programme. Such a degree of denial and preference for secrecy is ominous in my experience.

Of course MVP is MS's to award and if MS wants the process to be secret, it should say so rather than strenuously insisting that it is for "technically accurate contribution to on-line communities". Secrecy and inability to justify selection is not compatible with the assertion once it is published.

JR