Hi!

I certainly agree with you that it is hard to find information through messages because a lot of chaff.

Something in regards to that is presently under development.

However, I do not agree with terms you use to explain your reasons.

Think of a few points here:
1. You can do NOTHING to commitment or attention of people to certain topic. In forum messages/threads people are free to write anything they want in any form they want - to help only that topic, partially or completely, participate discussion. All is in form of free conversation and ideas exchange. When you see two developers talking, it is not very appropriate to jump in and ask "guys, please, make more attention to quality of answers" - they probably would not even hear you. Remember that everybody here throws knowledge and answers for free, so you cannot demand anything better than we have now.

2. Discussion never could be of high quality, just because it's nature: asking qiestion/answer, state different points one of which is the best or the worst etc. Only technical article that describes something could be of high quality.

3. People are interested to get what they want, and this is only very slightly dependent on quality. If there is only one way to develop something, we get an idea and develop all the rest by self. No need in 'quality' here. 'quality' appears only in case there is something to compare. For example, quality of source code - one is better and another is worse. But how much of 'quality' source code you see in real forum messages? Right, there are ony examples that you require to deal with in any way. To measure 'quality', you require to have something that exists in _most_ messages, but there are no any regularity, unfortunately. If you can formulate exactly what you mean as 'quality' of forum message, we all would appreciate it, but you probably would require to write an entire article to explain that :-)))

4. I would not like to ever link 'quality' with person's experience/mastery. Anybody, even when have little experience in VFP, probably could get to the same quality as expert, but just with a bit more time and effort. For example, 2 years ago I certainly spent much more time/source code in message than today, just because I had less experience at that time.

Also, as William Sanders said, you did not said anything except complains. I also did not got WHAT you want to improve in UT WEB site. If you have any ideas, can you share them?

Below are a few of mine:

UT WEB site recources already have FAQ, downloads, articles, links. Need something comparable to forum messages, but with only useful information, and some compfortable way to compile such resource.

Got any ideas how to improve UT content and use HUGE experience of UT messages?


>The Messages Area on the UT is a fine place to ask for help. It’s also a meeting place where developers have more fundamental discussions and keep things relaxed with an occasional joke. I like that all. However, IMO, the quality of the discussions is too often somewhat poor. I can think of several factors that may account for that poor quality. Before stating those negative factors, I’d like to present this list:
>
>1)
>A quality discussion requires that those involved have commitment. Without commitment people will not give serious attention by will.
>
>2)
>A quality discussion requires that those involved have enough time. Without available time, even if there’s enough commitment, people will not be able to give serious attention.
>
>3)
>It’s necessary that people perceive that the discussion indeed is a quality discussion. The perception of the level of quality is one of the factors that influences people’s decision to commit and participate.
>
>4)
>A quality discussion requires the adherence to a certain etiquette. Without a certain set of rules a discussion is at risk of bleeding to death or becoming a personal vendetta.
>
>5)
>The possibilities in the Message Area have impact on the quality of the discussion. Without a functionally adequate Message Area the participants have more difficulty in reacting and evaluating.
>
>6)
>A quality discussion requires a certain expert level of those involved. Too large differences between the expert levels of participants might give tensions. If the participants are lower experts, then high-expert observers (who don’t participate) might think of the discussions as being of poor quality, but the participants will think of them as being of fine quality.
>
>
>Here’s a personal experience: I’m not always on the UT, but if I log in and read the messages, I regularly feel urged to reply, not only when I think I know the answer to a question, but also when I question the answer or part of the answer that was given by someone else. I think I’m not the only one who reacts in this way. Very often a practical question in a non-chatter area is the offset of a somewhat fundamental discussion. Only some of them are started by me. The thing that strikes me is that the quality of these discussions too often shrinks a lot, as soon as people start making only one or so remark, to the 'master piece' of someone else. Or they do not reply at all. Having experienced and seen this all some times now, I’m at a point where I say to myself: “Peter, stop, it’s not worth the investment. Your time is too precious to be spent on discussions that too often turn out to become of poor quality”.
>
>Is there still hope for me? Well, what I’d appreciate is this:
>I propose that we ask Michel Fournier to create a new category: Holy Wars. The crux of that category is that people know that it’s meant for fundamental discussions (requirement 3), that those who decide to participate in a thread know that commitment and time are expected (requirements 1 and 2), that this category has its own etiquette (requirement 4) and that ideally the category has certain unique possibilities (requirement 5).
>
>Other thoughts about the details come to mind, but first I’d like to know what you all think of the basic idea of a new category.