Re: how to use the Select Distinct

On 01-Jun-2014 22:46 -0500, Vernon Hamberg wrote:

Oh well, I just decide to do what I do, and although I agree that
more information would be nice, I also have responded to this OP
enough in the past to have an idea, at least sufficient for me.

In fact, I asked him a question first.

Or her. And I saw that. But I chose to [sparsely] answer the question by the OP, along with some near-chiding banter; then ask a question about your comment with some additional banter.

We handle things differently, you and I - and that has to be OK, as
we are all different people.

Tautologically.

I prefer not to get into too much around HOW people should ask, I
guess - as to whether any responses were "...useless banter...", I
won't judge that one.

I was purposefully calling my own responses "useless banter", because when an OP establishes a somewhat completely described scenario, there are not typically a slew of responses making excruciating attempts at extracting the necessary details that were omitted. But with a poorly or otherwise incompletely described scenario, there are typically a slew of torturous responses either attempting divine what possibly the OP had intended or making many false assumptions that the OP then has to rebuke [as if they should have been understood]. And I am purposely responding again, just to continue this worthless thread with even more useless banter... because I am in a weird mood :-)

And with that I'd best be quiet, methinks - I'm probably in too bad a
state to begin to be cordial!!

Oh please do express your true thoughts, but I implore... only *after* reviewing the archived past topic <http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/201307/msg00025.html> from the same OP :-)

And I still wish this poster would reveal his true identity!!

No reason really, IMO, to know a name\identity; any pseudonym suffices for me, because while I know [or so my NewsReader tells me] that "Vern Hamberg wrote:", I do not know for example, that is your "true identity". Besides, I detest personally addressed responses in a public forum, thus I would have no reason to know any identity [other than an attribution; mostly to locate any trimmed quoted text]. IMO all responses should be directed as a reply to the question, not as a reply to the questioner, in the spirit of a public discussion. The attribution of the quoted reply is sufficient identifiable information, and the additional personalization of addressing the individual associated with that /persona/ makes the discussion appear to be a private between two individuals where everyone else has become in a sense, uninvited.

But if someone insists on addressing the author with a name other than HotelTravelFun or HotelTravelFunDotCom, they could try using one of the many various signatures used for posts using that email moniker in the past; among them: (Phil, JN, Charles, Phil Kestenbaum, JT). No matter which, given they apparently have not finalized on a moniker to use, other than the email and subscription identities.