The future of filePro... one major one anyway!

[Fairlight]

I'm going to try to tie this off.

Only Dennis Malen would say something like:
> Please allow me to provide a further clarification for my email to John 
> which should really need no clarification.

It did need clarification.

> John's initial email was extolling the virtues of reface and he supported 
> that by the fact that Sound Ideas also was the vendor and creator of 
> weblink. Those of you who use weblink will understand what a great product 
> it is. In my email, I agreed with John and explained that I too felt that 
> weblink was a great product.

I've actually looked at Weblink and parts of the demo.  Having done so, it
entirely slipped my mind that Sound Ideas was behind that product as well.
I was product-oriented, and specifically model-oriented.  Web-based versus
whatever model Reface falls within are two wholly differing models.  I was
not company-oriented--I rarely am.  Companies may put out 30 products and
only one is of use to me.  I'm not necessarily going to get that connection
between the two if it's left unstated, nor is everyone else.

Your statement was a flat, "We use weblink and its great!"

Zero context.  I've -looked- at that product myself and I wasn't drawing
any connection between the two, seriously.  Nobody that didn't take time to
look up Weblink (a seemingly unrelated product in a completely different
genre/model--which people also wouldn't know since you gave no hint of what
it does) and see that they were by the same vendor, would likely get that
connection if they didn't already know they were both done by the same
company.  I should have known, it slipped my mind, my error.  There's so
much out there that unless I follow a company's offerings closely, I'm not
going to draw a correlation like that a week or two out, probably--much
less six months to a year.  There's simply too much out there to track
who's producing what without looking it up unless you have a reason to.
So yes, I feel a reminder would have been helpful to me, anyone else that
didn't even know what Weblink was or why they should care, and to the
clarity of your message.

Had your statement been, "We use Weblink, also by Sound Ideas, and it's
great!" I honestly believe I'd have seen your point and not reacted at
all--because then it all fits and you're supporting S.I. as well, and it
all makes sense exactly as you portrayed it in this message.  It would have
had context.

As a calm statement of observation with -no- animosity intended, large
parts of why I feel it takes so long and so many posts for people to help
you with your problems has traditionally been what I see as a lack of
complete relevant information and context being presented, even when it's
explicitly requested by another party.  People are having to guess what
you mean because you don't provide enough salient information.  This is
another perfect example of a lack of clarity, only in a non-technical
thread.  Including at least a minimalistically complete context and set of
relevant information will go a long way towards avoiding misunderstanding,
incomprehension, and will help in getting your points across so that people
can either help you more effectively and efficiently, or just understand
what you're talking about in a case like this.  Take that observation at
face value; it's an attempt to help you help yourself and everyone else in
the long run.

Context is everything.

In this situation, you obviously did have a point, even if it was conveyed
without sufficient context to be understood by all (including me).  Point
acknowledged.  And now that I can see it, I now feel I owe you a public
apology too.  I'm sorry I got heated with you.

mark->