jmg

[AlanStevens]

Mona,

I note that jmg has been disabled as a contributor to this forum. I surmise that his recent "malicious bug" diatribe was a rant too far for some sensitive soul or other at PTC.

However, in spite of the occasional misguided bee in his bonnet and the often less than tactful way he expresses his views, jmg has contributed a lot, both to the old collaboratory and the current forum, helping many Mathcad users, old and new.

It's a weak Company that can't take criticism, even if that criticism is unjustified (especially if it is unjustified!).

I suggest you re-enable jmg.

Alan

[MikeArmstrong]

However, in spite of the occasional misguided bee in his bonnet and the often less than tactful way he expresses his views, jmg has contributed a lot, both to the old collaboratory and the current forum, helping many Mathcad users, old and new.

Alan,

I 100% agree with you. Jean dedicated a lot of time on this forum and some of his worksheets where superb.

It's a weak Company that can't take criticism, even if that criticism is unjustified (especially if it is unjustified!).

Where does a company draw the line though??????

PTC obviously wants "experts" to offer support of this forum, its a good way to display their product, but jean has been very frustrated since moving from the old forum.

Mike

[IRstuff]

He's a reasonably intelligent kook, and I agree that what I've seen of his posts are basically in the categories of "helpful" and "ignore this." I haven't seen any posts of his that warrant a disbarment.

TTFN

[MikeArmstrong]

He's a reasonably intelligent kook, and I agree that what I've seen of his posts are basically in the categories of "helpful" and "ignore this." I haven't seen any posts of his that warrant a disbarment.

The final straw might have been the discussion when Jean was suggesting his computer had been infected!

Mike

[AlvaroDíaz]

I'm pretty sure that before any action PTC staff have a large talk with Jean, and I'm sure too that the decission that they are taken after those talks are with large thinking about what directive could be taken. What I can say is if it is possible to just talk more to make the Jean return.

Regards. Alvaro.

[MikeArmstrong]

What I can say is if it is possible to just talk more to make the Jean return.

Alvaro,

I agree, that if possible, I would like to Jean back on this site contributing.

Mike

[PhilipOakley]

Yes. Jean should not be locked out. Despite the fact that he doesn't like units the way the rest of us do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

Philip

[IRstuff]

I don't think it was the units thing that did him in; more likely, it was the ranting about bugs and virus-like bugs, etc.

TTFN

[MikeArmstrong]

Yes. Jean should not be locked out. Despite the fact that he doesn't like units the way the rest of us do.

Come on...... That was never the reason was it???

Mike

[PhilipOakley]

MIke Armstrong wrote:

Yes. Jean should not be locked out. Despite the fact that he doesn't like units the way the rest of us do.

Come on...... That was never the reason was it???

Mike

He just looked at things from a different Angle

I also note that Tom G isn't bothering with the forum either.

Philip

[MikeArmstrong]

He just looked at things from a different Angle

Thats shocking!!!!

I also note that Tom G isn't bothering with the forum either.

Most notably from the more experienced users, its Tom and Stuart who are not bothering with this forum since the move.

Mike

[RichardJ]

Most notably from the more experienced users, its Tom and Stuart who are not bothering with this forum since the move.

Tom hasn't even logged in since the middle of Setpember. Stuart hasn't logged in since the middle of August!

[MikeArmstrong]

Tom hasn't even logged in since the middle of Setpember. Stuart hasn't logged in since the middle of August!

Why though - because the way the new site is structured?

Mike

[RichardJ]

Why though - because the way the new site is structured?

I don't know. I suspect that is at least part of it.

[RichardJ]

It's a weak Company that can't take criticism, even if that criticism is unjustified (especially if it is unjustified!).

If people got banned from the forums simply for criticism than a lot of us, including me, would be gone. I suspect the line was crossed when it went from criticism to accusation. Those are quite different things.

[AlanStevens]

Richard Jackson wrote:

.... I suspect the line was crossed when it went from criticism to accusation. Those are quite different things.

This is true, but a sense of humour helps (as your illuminati illustrated)!

If PTC found a post too objectionable they could delete it. A blanket ban seems very heavy-handed.

Alan

[RichardJ · Accepted solution]

If PTC found a post too objectionable they could delete it.

They did the first time. Then Jean started another thread. Then Mona asked him to desist. He chose not to.

Perhaps the moral of the story is that if PTC gives you two strong hints, then the ice that you are treading on is getting very thin!

A blanket ban seems very heavy-handed.

I have wondered if it's permanent, or just temporary. Others have been deleted from the Collaboratory in the past when they went too far (although always for rudeness, not for accusing PTC of doing such things as deliberately crashing users PCs) and I don't think they were ever restored.

Maybe it's possible to come back with a new name. Son_of_jmG

[AlanStevens]

Richard Jackson wrote:

.

Maybe it's possible to come back with a new name. Son_of_jmG

But probably not a new style!

Alan

[AWesterman-disa]

With Jean-Marie quite often it was a language thing - the way he phrased answers probably made sense in french but lost something in translation.

It was (at times) amusing to watch the crossed swords as two combattants argued the same side of the coin...

Or at least seperated by a gnats whatsit.

Bottom line is that the forum & all the users that are the losers!

No more input from JMG, Tom, Valery, Stuart ...

How many man-years of experience do they represent, and so happy to pass on as much of it as they could.

How can PTC (ever) replace that?

[MikeArmstrong]

How can PTC (ever) replace that?

Simple answer. IT CANT!!!!

I have seen Valery contributing on this site now and then. Not certain how much he contributed on the previous forum though.

Mike

[IRstuff]

Valery's posting frequency had dropped considerably in the last couple of years, so possibly, he had a job change, or was too busy with his various book projects.

Unclear about Tom and Stuart, although they were both active in the forums prior to the move. It's also possible that they haven't seen anything worth commenting on. Note that you can browse the forums without logging in, so they could just be lurking...

TTFN

[RichardJ]

Valery's posting frequency had dropped considerably in the last couple of years, so possibly, he had a job change, or was too busy with his various book projects.

I think it's because a new Russian Mathcad forum was created, and he spent a lot of time over there. I am not certain of that though.

Unclear about Tom and Stuart, although they were both active in the forums prior to the move.

Stuart's posting frequency had fallen off a lot before the move (it went up and down somwhat before that too). Tom's also fell off immediatley after the New Year, although he remained quite active. But Tom had commented in the past that he used to be active in the Compuserve forums and dropped them when they changed the format:

http://collab.mathsoft.com/read?98967,20

He's also made it clear he doesn't like these forums very much.

[mzeftel]

I'd like to reply to some of the concern expressed above. We received a number of complaints of abuse from other users about some of Jean's postings. I've deleted or edited the rudeness out of many of his posts over the past few years.

We asked him countless times to refrain from rudeness to other users and did not get any response from him. He has been helpful to many users in the past, but could not refrain from attacks. The purpose of this community is not for people to engage in rants against each other. We did not take this step lightly, and delayed it for a number of weeks, trying to work things out with Jean.

We're open to criticism and lively discussion, but not attacks on other users.

Mona

Mona Zeftel

Mathcad Senior Technical Consultant

PTC

[f.kohlhepp]

Mona Zeftel wrote:

We asked him countless times to refrain from rudeness to other users and did not get any response from him. He has been helpful to many users in the past, but could not refrain from attacks. The purpose of this community is not for people to engage in rants against each other. We did not take this step lightly, and delayed it for a number of weeks, trying to work things out with Jean.

Well

Jean was abrasive, critical, rude, abrupt, French

We will miss him.

[AlvaroDíaz]

Mona Zeftel wrote:

.... We received a number of complaints of abuse from other users about some of Jean's postings. I've deleted or edited the rudeness out of many of his posts over the past few years. ...

I must to say two things: First one I'm to thanks for Mona for delete once one of that kind of posts. Second one, in the past years she delete two of my posts (one without much sense from my point of view, but the other I must to agree that it was right deleted).

We did not take this step lightly, and delayed it for a number of weeks, trying to work things out with Jean.

I'm sure that you do this, just not forget to try again and ... I don't know, just try again.

Recently I post -again- a file where I take the derivative of an odesolve result. And miss that nobody scream-me that it is a bad practice, like Mr. Tom Gutman usually do, before showing how to do this in the hard but correct -in the numerical sense- way.

If PTC community team have the specific user-traffic statics I think that can isolate cases that are not that evident like Tom, Stuart and email -but not spam- inviting to talk about they participacion here. For Tom, Stuart, Xavier, PaulW ... just notice that other members miss they participation. For cases like Valery shop days with 28 hr or more.

.

We're open to criticism and lively discussion, ...

Must to confess that you are, more that one can think that an enterprise could be open to it.

The purpose of this community is not for people to engage in rants against each other. ...

That's cool, but ... which is the purpuse? It's that hard to explain it that in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community try to find (Ctrl+F in the explorer) the word "purpose"; that's in the understand that for PTC isn't only make money, which could be the main purpose, but seems to be not the only one.

Regards. Alvaro.

[IRstuff]

Ostensibly, per this site's home page, this is it's purpose:

Showcase. Network. Inspire.

Welcome to PlanetPTC Community - a destination for PTC customers and people who are passionate about product development. Register now to share your designs, connect with peers and publish your success stories.

Obviously, there are unstated objectives, like:

> a way to unburden customer support by having other customers do the supporting

> a "me-too" thing, since other people and companies have discussion forums

> a way to collect information on what customers are ranting about, without getting involved in the actual rant

TTFN

[RichardJ]

No more input from JMG, Tom, Valery, Stuart ...

That's true, but it's not new. Both Tom's and Stuart's (especially Stuart's) posts had fallen off before we were herded to the new forums. Valery used to post a lot more many years ago. Before Tom and Stuart even started posting (at least, to any great extent) there were Xavier and Robert. They drifted off for their own reasons, and it was a loss (especially in terms of writing user DLLs). Stuart and Tom appeared and it was a gain. Those are just a few of the more prominent names, but I can think of many others that have come and gone over the years. What happens from this point forward depends not only on the expertise that has disappeared, but on whether or not there is any new expertise that is going to appear (preferably, soon!).

[RichardJ]

It has occurred to me that I should add, as a positive example, that Alvaro is a relatively new addition. He has a really good understanding of math (better than mine, that's for sure) as well as Mathcad and several other CAS systems, and has contributed a lot recently. So you win some, you lose some. Which is not to say the losses are painless, but they are only one side of the coin.

[MikeArmstrong]

So you win some, you lose some.

Exactly.

We still have some excellent contributors to this site with vast amount of experience - Eden, Fred, Alan, yourself, Alvaro and Phillip

With the help and guidance offered from the people above the average users can become more competent using Mathcad and offer more to the forum. The likes of Tom, Stuart and jmg all started somewhere.

Mike

[IRstuff]

Reminds of a minor joke, man says, "Honey, I've reached the end of the Internet. Now, what do I do?" "Well, you can start by taking out the trash."

In forums of this nature, there eventually arises a time when you've seen the same question 10, or even 100 times, and you think to yourself, "Again?" At that point in time, you decide that it's time to move on. I don't know if that's the case with the aforementioned gentlemen, but I've experienced it once myself on a different site.

And perhaps, that was one of the lackings in the old site, as much beloved as it was. There was no FAQ-like section where newbie, or common, questions could be referred. So, a simple, easily searchable FAQ section might be needed here.

TTFN