More importantly, I have a concern. There is plenty of room in
RIA and Microsoft-oriented forums and groups to make their case. I'm
even fine with some open debate in Flexcoders. What I don't want to see
is Microsoft's Rich Platforms Product Manager, let alone other
Microsofties, spamming our Flex group with spin on thread after thread
after thread.
Given the traffic on this list, I hardly think that the 2-3 on-topic
posts I've seen from Scott in the past week classify as spam.
--
Jeffry Houser, Technical Entrepreneur
Jeffry, no fair editing out the next sentence:
"More importantly, I have a concern. There is plenty of room in RIA and
Microsoft-oriented forums and groups to make their case. I'm even fine
with some open debate in Flexcoders. What I don't want to see is
Microsoft's Rich Platforms Product Manager, let alone other
Microsofties, spamming our Flex group with spin on thread after thread
after thread. I'm not saying we are there, I'm saying I'm concerned
about it. Just reading the language, the last couple of posts are
certainly exploring that territory. I think there are more appropriate
venues for that than Flexcoders."
Being on-topic does not change the nature of the content. Take the third
example. Looking over the body of threads of this group, I can't recall seeing
a nice bullet-formatted explanation like the one offered by Scott of why IE
does not want to support SVG. I'm not saying this was a copy-paste thing, but
it is visually very different. Adobe, Microsoft, and others have plenty of
propoganda (or spam) posts, and no one is arguing that point. But I'm not going
to pretend this particular content is of the same casual nature of the posts
typical members of this group make. Scott uses Microsoft's participation in
standards bodies and knowledge of gui research that clearly expresses an
authority posture to legitimize his point. The typical posts here are overtly
subjective developer opinions taken with a grain of salt. Clearly not the same
content.
Secondly, this is not a response from a Flex developer, doing Flex stuff every
work day. (...imagining Scott with a Flex sticker on his laptop as Steve
Ballmer walks by...) This is a corporate-sounding explanation, from actual
Microsoft management, on an Adobe Flex group, suggesting we use ribbons in
Flex, ignore SVG and thank Microsoft for their h.264 standards compliance. Any
part of that sentence not accurate? I'm sure Scott is not programming in Flex,
and could not possibly be confused as a member of the Flex community or an
objective observer. Therefore, his responses in this group must be viewed in
the approriate context, in a truthful light. Clearly not a typical poster.
If Flexcoders' threads become an active corporate information outlet for Adobe
competitors, I don't think that's a good thing for the group. That is my point,
and I think it's a perfectly legitimate one.
