Sir, far too often you are quite right. I'm not sure of the reason for this
but after 10 years on this newsgroup, I have a couple of thoughts.
A lot of professional installers see DIY as some kind of threat, or else
feel that programming should be left to professionals who do it every day.
Being in the business myself, and having exposure to DIY'ers and their
problems, I can personally attest that there is some merit to this position.
However, being professionals, they ought to bite their tongue and assist,
since that is primarily what this newsgroup is for (or arguably should be
for).
Secondly, since our industry has been warped by years of the "free system"
nonsense, most companies now primarily rely on monitoring revenues to stay
afloat. When they see people come here trying to mickey mouse their alarm
systems by going local, it can be quite irritating - both because this
represents a sort of a revenue threat, but also because we all know
intrinsically, this is the wrong thing to do (in spite of what most DIY'ers
think...)
Also, there are a lot of people who post who don't think adequately in
advance how the words they use may be misinterpreted by someone else. So
tempers rise and away it goes !! It's pretty stupid I know, but it happens a
lot.
There is one of our posters here...a long time regular...who runs an on line
business that caters to DIY'ers, and who manages to irritate a lot of folks
here (for various reasons both valid and not). You are dealing with a lot of
strong personalities in our industry (that seems to be the nature of the
beast...), and a representative group of those strong personalities reside
here.
My advice is ask your question....the answer will be forthcoming in most
cases....and don't take the "attitude" personally. Remember, in every pile
of dung, there will be hidden a piece of gold ! Dig it out and flush the
rest away......
))
BTW, welcome....
RHC