Status does not make you more right nor should it withhold anyone from answering your posts, please do not use this in your argumentation.
I don't really understand why your posting back in such a manner. What good could come from it? It has nothing to do with the issue of the OP and is only going to drive the thread OT.
You can see that it was a miscommunication above. Couldn't you just leave it at that? I have no intention of arguing with you or anyone else around here. I was simply spending my afternoon reading some threads and helping where I can.
Status doesn't make me or anyone else "more right" but it signals where my intentions are. Common courtesy should have been enough but when it isn't, I like to remind the person I'm communicating with that my intentions are to give rather than take.
Could you imagine a community where the givers outweighed the takers? Where Platinum Sponsorship was the norm and not the exception? Where common courtesy was extended automatically to all despite the response? Where we had too many volunteers and we didn't know what to do with them? I think this type of community would be the type of community to strive for. I think everyone would want to be part of a community like that. I challenge everyone around here to strive for a community like that not only in their words but also their actions.
This is how I live my life. Giving in time, giving in experience and giving in money. Something that I've tried to do around here for many years. I even bought everyone dinner and dessert at the Salt Lake City meeting in 2007 (AFAIK, the last time we met as an organized group).
Gordon Rowell was like-minded. He even mused about such a community here:
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,35338.0.htmlHis words of embracing the non-developers as "something we don't do at all well" still rings true almost 3 years later.
Sadly, he's not a part of the project anymore but it shows what his desires were.
...nor should it withhold anyone from answering your posts...
I neither said it should nor implied that.
...please do not use this in your argumentation.
Gordon's number one exercise was to read the following page and note the "Registration agreement terms" at the bottom:
http://www.coderanch.com/forums/user/insertWhat Gordon seemed to realize was that we are great at getting the "right" answer because we live in fields (programming, physics, etc) where commas and semi-colons matter because code has to be exact to run correctly. But sometimes we end up treating relationships in a like manner because of this and end up extending our exactness to our communication.
This exactness leads to friction in relationships as all developer spouses can easily attest to. The end result is something more. We ask for help and donations yet we fail to extend common courtesy. We're quick to put in a verbal jab at any moment's notice rather than a kind word of thanks. We want people to follow yet we fail to lead in our words. We want people to volunteer yet we put effort into preventing people to do so.
No one has to help. No one has to donate. We don't have to post in the forums or WIKI. Yet we do. Although it becomes increasingly difficult to do so when we have to write a short thesis just to defend every time we post.
I think next weekend I'll just go deep sea fishing with my family. I stayed back this weekend to help around here but it seems my family was right... fishing is more rewarding than trying to help others.
Regards,
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