I've been banned from UtterAccess

"Chris O'C via AccessMonster.com" u29189@uwe wrote in
news:934e31f83313c@uwe:

Utter Access is great for getting answers to beginner and
intermediate level questions. Let's face it, most people asking
questions are beginning and intermediate level Access users, so
that's good. But for advanced and expert level Access questions
search Google Groups, not Utter Access.

I think UA has a pretty good community of regular posters, or at
least, I saw that in the replication-related threads that I would
monitor. I really wasn't on UA for any purpose but to make sure it
offered accurate advice on Jet Replication, because there's too
little of it out there. I didn't think that the questions I was
encountering were particularly low-level, but then, replication is
not a low-level topic in general (though certainly, some of the
people asking the questions were little more than novices with
Access).

UA no longer has contributions from one of the few people that has
over a decade of experience implementing Jet Replication. I don't
claim that I have all the answers -- not at all! But I'm certainly
one of a very small group of individuals who've spent enough time
using the technology to have answers to most questions at our
fingertips.

Anyway, thanks for your support. It does put it in perspective for
me to realize that I wasn't just reacting in anger, that my response
was basically correct.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

"Gina Whipp" wrote in
:

[I made the reverse move to yours, having grown up on a farm in
Central Illinois and ending up living in NYC for the last 20 years]

Now perhaps, after everyone has calmed down you can
'talk' to the moderators or maybe you don't want to, up to you
really.

I don't see the point. I'm not going to maintain a separate personna
for each forum I post in -- I don't have time to waste the mental
energy on that.

But
I personally will not ban the site and would not recommend for
anyone to do so. No matter where you go there is the good, the
bad and the ugly

I'm re-evaluating how I look at any site that has a "report to
moderator" or "report as offensive" link in the forums. It's subject
to just this kind of "veto of the easily-offended" and that's never
going to be an environment in which I'm going to be very popular,
since the easily-offended are going to find plenty in my writing to
get upset about.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

"Gina Whipp" wrote in
:

"BruceM" wrote in message
...
You have described something that was among my reasons for
leaving NYC. I never really fit in anyhow, but fortunately for
my life on the outside I never acquired the confrontational
habit.

See now a New Yorker would say... "Not confrontational, just
direct!". As an Ohian (Now), I understand EXACTLY what you mean.

Well, as a born-and-bred midwesterner who lived the first 26 years
of my life in the Midwest (Illinois and Ohio), I *don't* get it.
Direct is quite different from confrontational. Maybe I was direct
already before moving here (my father always got criticized for
that) and that's why I fit in here.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

"David W. Fenton" wrote:

Occasionally the tone of your replies are quite negative and
sarcastic. I've mentioned this a number of times over the years.
If indeed this was one of those postings then I can understand
why the moderators would ban you.

I called someone's advice "stupid" and then explained why. You can't
tell whether or not what I posted was beyond the pale because it's
now been edited out of the post (along with part of my explanation
of the problem with the advice).

I still stand by my comment. You may not perceive a few of your
postings as being disrespectful to the other person. However I
certainly have seen such over the years. And, for the most part, when
I've seen such I've told you so.

My biggest reason for posting such was not for your sake but for the
sake of the person to whom you replied. I didn't want them leaving
upset with the newsgroups or online forum or wherever they read your
postings and never coming back.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

David,

As the UA Administrator who banned you I want to make it clear that
you were not banned because of your technical information. You were
banned because the tone of your response showed complete dis-respect
for your (then) fellow member. At UA, we believe that respect and
technical expertise should go hand in hand. We strive to ensure that
members maintain that respect in each and every post. Many people turn
to UA because they find the tone of at least some of the content in
many newsgroups, including this one, just plain offensive.

One of our members put it this way quote Those links are very good
reminders of why I do NOT search the newsgroups for help any more.
This attitude of "stupid suggestions deserve to be called stupid"
would be easy to write off as another form of "I'm virtually anonymous
online, so I'm going to be rude in ways I can't be in person". end
quote

The same member, specifically referring to you, went on to say,
quote He may be brilliant, but there are plenty of other equally
brilliant people who know that civility costs nothing. Finally, the
suggestion that UA is just for beginners looking for beginner-level
help is just name-calling - a famous last recourse for less-than-
intelligent peopleend quote

Although it is not easy to do so, I am suggesting that you take a
moment to see yourself as others see you. Consider this remark:
quote There's a difference between someone who spends time online to
HELPING people, and someone who uses their experience/knowlege to
BELITTLE people in the GUISE of providing assistance. end quote

A response in this thread referred to 'calling a spade a spade' and
not being able to do so unless it is sugar-coated. That is not quite
the case. At UA we welcome people to call spades, spades. We simple
insist that they not coat their remarks with layers of unnecessary and
insulting invective. We do not want the tone of UA's discussions to
degenerate to the level that is all too frequently demonstrated in
unmoderated newsgroups. I note that there is at least one reply in
this thread that would would immediatly bring a warning and ultimate
banning from UA for the poster in question. We cannot dictate the
language and content of the Internet but we can and do control the
language and content of our forum.

So David, I wish you well in your future endeavours. Your technical
expertise will be missed at UA. Your style of presenting that
expertise will not.

Glenn
UA Forums Administrator



On Mar 18, 6:11*pm, "David W. Fenton"
wrote:
For calling a stupid suggestion a stupid suggestion, one of the
moderators at UtterAccess has banned me because I refused to
apologize for the infraction of calling bad advice bad advice.

Be warned that on UtterAccess.com, anyone can post terrible advice
if they do it politely (according to what the moderators arbitrarily
consider "polite") and continue to post bad advice. If, on the other
hand, one strongly criticizes someone else's advice, you can be
banned, even if you're right about the bad advice.

I would suggest that this should makes anyone question the
reliability of anything posted on UtterAccess if it's not confirmed
elsewhere.

--
David W.Fenton* * * * * * * * *http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com * *http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

FWIW - I've only been posting in this newsgroup for a couple of years, but I
have seen many of your posts.
I don't know what you wrote on UA, but I've never seen you be outright mean
or personally attack anyone.
There's no doubt that you are direct, and if you think something is stupid
you'll say so, but I personally don't
see anything wrong with that.

I recall a few months back I posted a response to a question about creating
a query. In the SQL I suggested
in my response, I mistakenly wrapped a field name in quotes instead of
brackets. Had the OP done what
I had suggested, they would have ended up overwriting all the data in their
table with a field name. Certainly
not the only incorrect response I've posted, but I remember it because it
was a stupid mistake on my part.
Unintentional, but stupid nonetheless. Fortunately, one of the MVP's (Dirk
Goldar I think) noticed it right
away and warned the OP not to follow my advice. He didn't call my advice
stupid, but if he had I would
not have been offended, because it WAS stupid.

I'm not from NY - never even been there. I'm from Colorado, but I think it's
refreshing sometimes to hear
someone be direct and say what they think, provided that it is a fact based
argument and not just a meaningless
personal attack (like I said, I've never seen you do the latter). Saying
that a person's advice is stupid is NOT
the same thing as saying that the person is stupid. I think the whole
politically correct / lets sugar coat everything
movement goes too far sometimes.

"David W. Fenton" wrote in message
36.90...
For calling a stupid suggestion a stupid suggestion, one of the
moderators at UtterAccess has banned me because I refused to
apologize for the infraction of calling bad advice bad advice.

Be warned that on UtterAccess.com, anyone can post terrible advice
if they do it politely (according to what the moderators arbitrarily
consider "polite") and continue to post bad advice. If, on the other
hand, one strongly criticizes someone else's advice, you can be
banned, even if you're right about the bad advice.

I would suggest that this should makes anyone question the
reliability of anything posted on UtterAccess if it's not confirmed
elsewhere.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

"David W. Fenton" wrote in message
36.90...
For calling a stupid suggestion a stupid suggestion, one of the
moderators at UtterAccess has banned me because I refused to
apologize for the infraction of calling bad advice bad advice.

snip

David, I've been thinking about this since I read your first post. Like
others have said, you *do* know what you're talking about, and it's not
difficult for an observer to discover that fact.

Elsewhere in this thread you mentioned that the reason you joiined Utter
Access was because there is such a dearth of accurate, knowledegeable
information regarding replication and you were willing to invest your
time in the interests of helping others who had need of your knowledge
and were otherwise quite unlikely to find it.

Like you, I have a fairly low tolerance for sugar coated, politically
correct, look the other way avoidance of dealing with hard truth.

Where I differ with you is in how I attempt to confront the issue when
it appears necessary to get at the truth of a matter -- sometimes it is
irksome, but in point of fact doesn't interfere with the resolution of
the matter at hand. I urge you to consider the advice of the proverb
contained in the ancient Jewish writings: "A soft answer turneth away
wrath," particularly if you still have the desire to make accurate
information about replication accessable to as many Access users as
possible.

Perhaps something as simple as saying "That advice is incorrect, and
mis-represents the facts; and this is why: ..... " instead of "That
advice is stupid, and this is why: ...." would directly address the
technical issues and be perfectly acceptable on UA's moderated forum.

My .02 worth.
--
Clif

David

I was very sorry to see you banned from Utter Access, as had always
found your posts informative, accurate and useful; but I fully
understood the reasons why you were banned.

When I first joined UA, I was particularly apprehensive about joining
a global community of people who were far more knowledgeable about
Access than I, I did not want to appear to be stupid - or made to feel
that way. After looking at a number of sites I chose UA because I
felt that I would not be patronised or used by supposed experts as a
vehicle to show how clever they were - which does appear to happen on
some sites.

If I had come across a pile of posts where other members, or there
questions/answers, were referred to as 'stupid', or by other
perjorative terms, I would never have joined, and nor would many
others - this is one of the tremendous strengths of UA.

I do hope that you will reconsider and resolve the issue with the UA
administrators. The issue is not that your views and feelings are not
justified, but that the ethos of the site is to be supportive and
welcoming to both new and exisiting members; expressing your views in
the way you did, just does not fit in with that ethos.

I do hope to see you back at UA soon.

"Tony Toews [MVP]" wrote in
:

My biggest reason for posting such was not for your sake but for
the sake of the person to whom you replied. I didn't want them
leaving upset with the newsgroups or online forum or wherever they
read your postings and never coming back.

As you may well be aware, I don't give a rat's ass. If they are that
thin-skinned, they aren't going to cope well in the long run in
online forums of any kind.

I just don't get this incredible sensitivity that I see among many
participants in online forums. These people wouldn't have lasted 1
second back in the old days of Usenet, and I think that was actually
a good thing.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

argeedblu wrote in

m:

As the UA Administrator who banned you I want to make it clear
that you were not banned because of your technical information.
You were banned because the tone of your response showed complete
dis-respect for your (then) fellow member.

In your judgement, which I consider completely wrong. I *was*
disrespectful of his *advice*, but not in any way towards the poster
himself.

What I consider disrespectful is posting an answer that completely
ignores the original poster's requirements, as was the case with the
answer I criticized. I also almost simultaneously posted a response
to the original question with much better advice that was actually
responsive to the OP's problem.

At UA, we believe that respect and
technical expertise should go hand in hand.

Confusing criticism of a post and criticism of a person shows that
you don't really understand "respect." Strong criticism of the
content of someone's post is a sign of *respect*, as it takes them
seriously strongly criticising the content of their advice.

We strive to ensure that
members maintain that respect in each and every post. Many people
turn to UA because they find the tone of at least some of the
content in many newsgroups, including this one, just plain
offensive.

Well, I wish I'd known that about UA on the front end -- it's a
protected environment for those who are fearful and lacking in self
confidence. I doubt I'd have ever spent any time trying to help
people there if I knew it was a "special olympics" kind of forum.

One of our members put it this way quote Those links are very
good reminders of why I do NOT search the newsgroups for help any
more. This attitude of "stupid suggestions deserve to be called
stupid" would be easy to write off as another form of "I'm
virtually anonymous online, so I'm going to be rude in ways I
can't be in person". end quote

I don't know if what you post is relation to *me*, but I will say
that I am anything but anonymous online. I try very hard to maintain
a single identity across all the online forums in which I
participate. This has caused me much grief a StackOverflow.com, for
instance, where they enforce a ridiculously stupid "no signatures"
policy, so my posts there don't look like my posts in all other
forums on the Internet.

I value my identity.

And I stand by every last word I've ever posted.

When I've been wrong, I've apologized.

But I'm certainly not going to apologize for offering good advice.
And I have no doubt that my advice was good, and that the strong
rejection of the bad advice was the correct approach. We could
quibble over the wording of that strong rejection, but that would
always come down to coddling the easily-offended, in my opinion.

The same member, specifically referring to you, went on to say,
quote He may be brilliant, but there are plenty of other equally
brilliant people who know that civility costs nothing. Finally,
the suggestion that UA is just for beginners looking for
beginner-level help is just name-calling - a famous last recourse
for less-than- intelligent peopleend quote

But here's an important point

Nobody else on UA has 12 years of regular experience with Jet
replication. Now, because of this over-sensitivity to strong
language, there is nobody left on UA who has extensive experience
with Jet replication to help those who need help. I don't claim to
know everything (heaven knows, Michael Kaplan has forgotten more
about replication than I ever knew), but the lack of knowledge on
the subject at UA was a crying need when I signed up. The only
reason I ever got involved in UA was to help people using Jet
replication, precisely because there's so little understanding of
the capabilities of the technology and so much misinformation about
it.

Now, UA users won't be getting my help.

This is fine with me -- it frees up my time. But I can't help but
think that the policy of protecting the whiny-assed titty babies
from impolite peoplie like myself is depriving them of useful
information.

That equation seems out of balance to me.

Although it is not easy to do so, I am suggesting that you take a
moment to see yourself as others see you. Consider this remark:
quote There's a difference between someone who spends time online
to
HELPING people, and someone who uses their experience/knowlege to
BELITTLE people in the GUISE of providing assistance. end quote

I didn't do any such thing, and you know it perfectly well. I
belittled someone's *advice*, not the the person offering the
advice. And by posting that, you are lying about what happened. I'd
appreciate a retraction, or at least a clarification that you agree
that the person who wrote that was completely mischaracterizing the
exchanged that actually happened.

A response in this thread referred to 'calling a spade a spade'
and not being able to do so unless it is sugar-coated. That is not
quite the case. At UA we welcome people to call spades, spades. We
simple insist that they not coat their remarks with layers of
unnecessary and insulting invective.

There was no insulting invective. I said his advice was stupid.
That's all. I then went on to briefly explain why it was stupid. Had
I unsulted him directly I would have apologized.

But that's not what happened, and that's why I refused to apologize.

We do not want the tone of UA's discussions to
degenerate to the level that is all too frequently demonstrated in
unmoderated newsgroups.

You mean like this one? I don't see anything at all wrong with the
level of discourse here. I think you're protecting thin-skinned
people from the real world when you set up a forum that rewards
hair-trigger "I'm offended" mentalities.

I note that there is at least one reply in
this thread that would would immediatly bring a warning and
ultimate banning from UA for the poster in question. We cannot
dictate the language and content of the Internet but we can and do
control the language and content of our forum.

I think that, ultimately, it's probably good this happened. I never
should have been involved with UA, as it's clearly a site based on
premises that I find damaging and unhelpful.

So David, I wish you well in your future endeavours. Your
technical expertise will be missed at UA. Your style of presenting
that expertise will not.

You might consider what it means to your users that you banned me
instead of engaging in dialogue on the subject.

Likewise, that you've now edited content that I posted in a way that
misrepresents what I said. Were I a non-involved UA user, I'd start
being very suspicious of any post marked as having been edited by
anyone but the OP.

I think UA is utterly discredited by everything you've said above.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/