ok, so hbiss, have you benefitted from this forums members expertise in your knowledge that has translated into financial gain for yourself.
ok, so you do not really need any help, and i do not really have much expertise to offer. i would still help you if you asked for it. i do learn from this forum by answering questions, reading answers, and by getting responses to questions. i can try to learn from other peoples experiences, advance my skills, and the reputation of the products i support when support is not available readily elsewhere. i do feel if the service providors had developed a trusting, value added, respected expert relationship with their customers, their customers might not be on here in the first place.
the rest are guys may be like like me trying to hone their skills to provide just the relationship i mentioned, as to why users/ customers are on here in the first place. for the most part i see this as techs helping techs to get the job done when they have troubles, and need a hand. we have all been there at some point.
some are here to try to promote their own business in direct violation of the tos of this forum. personaly, if someone offers help on here, and impresses the potential customer with their expertise enough that the user wants to inquire about a business relationship, that would not bother me. i do not make the rules here though so i do not do that either. trolling with your service company contact info in your signature is an offense against all the respectable members here. the only exception i would make for that is if you have a informational, informative, self help website in there, which is not prominently offering your contact info as the purpose of the site. instead offers a forum, or resources that require no fee, or business relationship to take advantage of. not sales, or lead generation sites.
to only offend those this was intended to offend. no one who has posted in this thread do i feel is doing anything wrong. they are all upright, and respectable in their actions, postings, and signatures. hbiss is included, and the help he offers is commendable, as he makes his living off this business as well. the amount he is willing to do for free is his right, and his decision. i respect that, and he is honest about his intentions.
i do think that most would be better served by finding a trusted, value added, expert relationship with a service providor. since i can do so much more for a system if i can put my hands on it. i do feel more motivated to help peers, those that offer help to others not just ask for help, and that are not trolling for business.
i do have vendor in my profile, but i am just a tech, and have not bothered to change it from my original error in my profile. i have had no formal training on the ipo, and i have never seen anyone else implement the ipo, just figuring it out myself. reading the pdf's, taking assessments on avaya u, and this forum are really the only learning resources i have available to me. it has helped me get my pa's in ipo, and ccc, and i just need the third party test for my aca at this point. i doubt i would be that far if not for this forum. thanks to everyone who has posted, i have been gleaning. i try to give as well as i get.
