I had only in my very first post tried to compliment this forum, but instead had a very bad initial experience here.
It appears that helpful, researched, on-topic comments are not as welcome in this forum (at least by all the moderators) as I had assumed, so I will just move along and go elsewhere. It is very ironic that I had just signed up, largely to praise this forum for keeping older threads open so that people can share useful, updated information about older questions. Instead, when I tried to share some information myself, alansidman seemingly didn't even bother to read my post, and closed the thread, falsely claiming:
"Unfortunately your post does not comply with Rule 2 of our Forum RULES. Do not post a question in the thread of another member -- start your own thread."
By my post was not a new question, no less a [B]new[B] question. The moderator seemingly didn't bother to read the content.
I had begun my post by quoting a very reasonable moderator. I wrote:
"Leith Ross said, 'There is a policy in place here at the forum so members can share their thoughts and solutions about older posts.' "
My next sentence was, "I registered partly to say that I like this policy, and often find use from replies that are several years after the original post."
I then followed up with some of my own information about the existing thread topic that I found to be useful in regard to that exact topic. It was not a new question, which is obvious to anyone who actually reads it.
I had found the thread myself by googling it, so I thought that others would probably find the thread that way as well, and so that it was a logical place to congregate relevant, related information. I think if the moderator had bothered to read the post, rather than go off control-tripping the new users, he would have known that no additional question had been asked within my post. Although I don't know alansidman myself, I do know that some moderators on the Internet, like some police officers, prefer to use their power, such that it is, to harass and control rather than to look out for the greater good. I hope that's not the case here, but either way, alansidman chose to use his power not to welcome me to the forum but to chastise me and shoo me off the forum -- apparently without bothering to read what I wrote -- so this may be my final post on this forum.
I had decided to add to that thread topic partly because a previous poster, teylyn, had written:
"Zababcd, this question is from 2005. I doubt that the asker will return to see your comment. The only purpose your post serves is an attempt to improve your blog's SEO."
I knew this was incorrect because I myself had found great value from the thread, including from the updated replies. The post he was referring to there happened to constitute a very good answer to the original thread question. However, the links were broken, so that was one of the reasons I replied to the thread. Thanks to moderators like alansidman, however, in the future, people who find you via search engines will just have to live with the old, broken links. But he least he enjoyed himself, and put me in my place. Nice job.
I often see replies to original posts that come years later that better answer the original questions. I welcome that, as I explained in my post, and I was praising the policy of this forum of welcoming that. It is very important to allow people to post follow-ups to old topics because often the best answers come years later. If this forum has a new policy banning that, then I will avoid this forum.
alansidman either has better ideas about this, or he enjoys power-tripping new users, or he doesn't read the posts he moderates, or or, possibly even, he is not familiar with the forum rules himself.
The original poster has nothing to do with the later answers. This is a help forum that people often discover via search engines. So, the later responses are for the benefit not of the original poster, but of those who find the thread later. If you senselessly close topics for no reason because you like to feel like you're doing something, you send a useful, living thread to a premature death. No one was spamming or writing anything offensive. We were simply adding some follow-up notes for the benefit of those who would discover the thread later.
Some moderators get so wrapped up in forumland that they forget that a forum is not just for the benefit of the little clique of active posters. A forum is also meant to educate that wider circle, some of whom might later join your forum -- although they are unlikely to when you treat them like this.
The topic of that thread is obscure enough that it makes no sense to open a new topic simply to share a few random additions that are relevant mainly to that topic. The moderator's actions serve no purpose other than to alienate a new user, and to clutter the forum with lots of new little posts that in fact belong in other topics.
If I misunderstood the policy of this forum, which I was praising, then I would now like to criticize the policy of this forum. I suspect, however, that it may be the moderator himself who fails to understand the policy of the forum. (If he actually read my post.) At the very least, there appears to be some disagreement between the moderators about what the purpose, goals, and policies of this forum ought to be. I, obviously, stand firmly with those who say that there is often merit to adding new information to older posts. I use Excel and I speak from experience in browsing forums that this is absolutely critical to maintaining high quality for a topic. It makes no sense to start a new thread about an identical topic simply because a few years have past. Why should I have to search through 10 different threads about the same topic? That's just crazy.
alansidman has brushed me off, and I'm now a little leery of how this forum is run, so I will probably be going elsewhere in the future to share my thoughts. I do think at the very least however that moderators ought to read the actual content of a post and respond to that, whatever the rules of a forum may be. I at least tried to add some helpful, on-topic information to an existing thread, based on my interpretation of forum policies, and alansidman decided that what was most important was some sort of seemingly arbitrary policing of the forums instead. I took the time to sign up for the forum; you could at least write a response that doesn't sound like a form letter response to some completely unrelated post.
If you want more context about this, the original thread is here:
https://www.excelforum.com/excel-pro...om-vba-vb.html
This is for you guys to sort out. I don't want to get into a big, ongoing discussion of this. I came, I saw, I liked. And now I have a new, different impression, and so I'm taking off. But perhaps someone there will find some merit in something here that I have brought to your attention. It's your forum. You can run it however you like. I know what is useful to me as an Excel user, but sometimes a forum may have different, overlapping goals, of which only one is to help Excel users to find the best information available.
Take care,
Dan
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