Is it a contest of who has the most information.?

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-526 Greg Fosmark wrote:
	"Hi All, I have a bit of a problem with how questions are answered at times
in this forum. Is seems to be a contest of who can be the most right, and not
so much a compassionate desire to help others solve the problems at hand with
their cars. There are those who wield what they know like a club, and bludgeon
others with their knowledge, and I for one am growing tired of this practice.

	"I don't have the answers to every Alfa Romeo ever made nor do I want to, but
I am more than happy to share what I have learned from working on the ones
that I have owned. When I started working on cars I was fortunate enough to
have a great mentor that shared his knowledge with out making me feel like an
under informed idiot. This gave me the confidence to grow my skills and learn
my lessons.

	"I am glad that their are people who know so much about the things they love.
They are a valuable resource, and have so much to teach others. But, teach not
beat people with knowledge." ================================================

I assume Greg Fosmark was talking about me, since Gordy Hyde, Brian Shorey,
Greg Fosmark and I had been discussing Sport Sedan windshields. I thought it
was a perfectly civil discussion, and I don't see clubbing and bludgeoning in
it.

I am sorry that he has a problem.

Nobody has all the answers. Some answers are simple; some are pretty obscure.
Some, including some things that everybody knows, are dead wrong. Some are
more important than others. Some relatively unimportant ones can become deeply
embedded in the accepted body of knowledge. This current thread started when
Gordy Hyde gave Zack (Spinya?) some information which I believe was incorrect,
citing Greg as the source, and it went on from there. Would it be "a
compassionate desire to help others solve the problems at hand with their
cars" to leave Zack with information which I believe is incorrect? I don't
think so.

This is just a question of whether one snippet of information supplied to Zack
and embedded for all of the future Zacks is right or wrong. Greg believes from
his experience that there was a change from one windshield to another at the
model-year changeover between 1978 and 1979. Fair enough. He says Tom Zat
agrees with him. Fine. Brian Shorey 'guesses' that the change occurred
sometime midyear 1978. OK, think so. The parts book covering all USA Alfetta
coupes and sedans says that the glass changed at the same time as the sheet-
metal around it. The parts book may be wrong. Luigi Fusi and Giancarlo Catarsi
(who wrote the book on Alfetta sedans) both say that the car with those
changes was presented on February 26 1977. ARI, the importer of the US
version, says that the US version was introduced here in November 1977. Both
dates, or either, could be wrong.

It is no skin off my back. I have a mid-1978 Sport Sedan, a mid-1979 Sport
Sedan, and a spare windshield from what ARI says was the 200th Sport Sedan
imported here (probably late 1977) which will fit either of them. 

Again, I am sorry that Greg has a problem.

Sincerely,

John H. 
Raleigh, N.C.

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