> > >Does the publication of one's researches in a book necessarely make them >more valid? Is "work in progress" not a useful basis for discussion? >I. Stein No, that's not the point. Vince's response was to set the record straight with some references. The post he was responding to was something that was presented as "fact". The person making the claim gave no support for that claim nor did they say something like "I have a strong suspicion that thus and thus is so", or "my reasoning about this leads me to conclude that thus and thus is so, due to....". If something is presented as a fact without any qualifiers then the readers are led to conclude that the information is in fact true and that it is common knowledge that most of the others who read these posts are expected to know. If a person sets something out into the discussion as "fact" then it discourages some meaningful dialog that would have occurred because some are likely to feel it is not their place to contradict someone. In other words, one way sets up a tug of war between parties and the other encourages a free flow. I see this same sort of thing on other Internet Groups. Its a common problem and I really believe that it disenchants many...am I alone? Michael Wathen
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC