CompuServe Messages

Ah!!! Bill…<sigh> You just won't let it go will you. You did respond to me….twice (with the same message). Once in section 0 and once here in section 12. Funny thing is, the message you were responding to had to have been read in section 0 (because that is where it was posted), the same section from which you later couldn't retrieve messages addressed to you. Remember the messages that Jonas forwarded to you??? The same two messages you asked me to remove. So you did get the reply you are looking for now. I thought it more tactful to reply to your message in a closed section rather than on the open board, but I guess it's not to be. So let's get a few things straight. First off…this ain't my living room. It ain't Gary's, or Jonas'. It's Autodesk's. I just clean up around here in return for the UID. There are supposed to be several of us around here to do the cleaning up, but the (UN)antagonistic attitude towards sysops in general on this forum has pretty much disgusted the others, so it's left to me to handle by default. Secondly, even if you are correct in assuming that the message in question was not written in frustration, it is NOT your place to correct it. You can't do anything about it but spout off and raise the temperature level of the forum. I know you got that shiny new free flag (there really ain't anything happening on this forum that I don't know about), but all that does is let you write more and longer messages for less money. Fact is that I was asked to apologize to you because you just got that new flag. I refused to do so, and I still do BECAUSE YOU WERE WRONG in what you did. It ain't your job. If the guy was really frustrated for any reason, your messages surely didn't help the situation. And if (as you assume) he posted just to burn someone, he surely did…..YOU. In that case, you did exactly what he would have been looking for………do you honestly believe that to be really smart ???? That's why I consider most of the replies generated in that thread to be childish. Either those messages added to someone's frustration or they played right into someone's hand and he got all of you. In either way they didn't solve anything, and they just might have turned a valuable asset off. Anyone that can afford $1500 worth of IPAS routines just might know what they are doing. In the years that I've been following the parade with my broom and dustpan on these forums, I've found that the best way to handle messages such as the one under discussion is to either answer them very matter of factly, or to ignore them completely. Either way you leave the antagonist with nothing to fight. If he's really looking for help, he gets it and normally apologizes for the tone of his initial message. And if he's spoiling for a fight, there just ain't nothing there for him to do battle. And if everyone were to follow the same example, there would be lots less excitement here. Gawd…the longer I'm at this keyboard, the mellower I get. Must be this coffee I'm drinking…wonder if Virginia slipped me some decaf. But Bill, I too got a little ticked when I saw that thread. I however, was looking at it from a general forum aspect, and in the light of what has transpired on this forum over the last several weeks. In these last coupla weeks there have been three incidences where I've had to step between the members of this forum, Autodesk and some TM that was just trying to do his job. Then I find a thread that under a given set of circumstances, if allowed to continue, could eventually bring the forum down. And I have to assume those circumstances until it's proven otherwise. That is also part of being a sysop. Fastest, best and most prudent solution…..move it. This ain't the easiest solution on THIS forum. I then fired off a bunch of curt messages to the participants of the thread that had stepped out of bounds (including the sender of that message) to stem (or at least curtail) the inevitable flack that I knew was going to arise. Well….you guys sure didn't disappoint me did you. Funny thing…I called Bob Henderson about the thread and the follow up messages cause he doesn't have a machine at home, and I didn't want him to be blind sided by what was turning out to be a big bruhaha on the forum. And he was actually surprised by the reason for my call. He really thought that I was calling to tell him that I had just "elfed" the lot of you. But….<sigh>……I didn't. You see Bill. I know what it feels like to get your first flag. Makes you feel like you're on the top of the world. Someone thinks you're good enough to be given special priviledges. And this is now YOUR forum, and you're gonna take care of it. But you were given that flag to SUPPORT the MEMBERS of the ASOFT forum. Just like I was given a WIZARD flag to support the forum itself and it's workings. I sure can't support 3D Studio. The only animation I've ever done was on acetate cels that were eventually shot with a 16mm Bolex (that I still have….it's gotta be an antique by now). But I do know how this forum runs and how to run it, after all I built it (along with the libraries on ACAD….sheesh….I ran up a $6000 bill on this comped account in three weeks while we were doing that).<Gawd…I'm rambling>. So Bill. Pick up that flag, dust it off and shine it up. You're gonna need it to help out all these new users of the Autodesk Mulit-Media products. And let me and my goon squad (affectionately known as TM's) <now I'm gonna hear about this one too> take care of the head bashing and butt kicking, as well as the message base massaging. We've been given the flags to do that (and I sure could use the help around here).