Why am I not a Tableau Ambassador in 2023?

A warning to start, this is going to be difficult for me to write and it’s probably going to be difficult to read (for you, the reader) but I think it has to be done.  I won’t mention names, but you might know who I’m referring to at times.  I would also welcome ANY comments at the end – please tell me to ‘pull my head in’ or a message of support, whatever you think is appropriate.

Some background

I started using Tableau in August 2014, I quickly fell in love with its ease of use and I was even happier when I found the Tableau Community forums and started contributing.  I’ve been participating in online communities for several years and at one stage I managed one of the largest motorsport forum communities in Australia (I still do, it’s just a lot smaller than it used to be).  

The Tableau Community Forums was the BEST place to do TWO things at the same time – learn from other people who were happy to share their experiences and teach other people who posted questions I could answer.  There were many times when I thought I was helping someone (and I was, they were happy), but there was also another better answer from someone else where I learned something as well – that’s the Community spirit, helping each other.

Time passes and in 2018 I started my own business – specialising in Tableau consulting.  I’ve helped hundreds of users through teaching and consulting – both in-person and online, and continue to do so. To be fair I don’t use Tableau 8hrs/day any more, I do a lot more data engineering using SaaS like Hevo, Fivetran, Snowflake, dbt, Alteryx, Python, etc.. basically, whatever is the best solution for the client.

Ambassador years …

I can remember (it was late 2016) the first time I received an email from Tableau with an offer to become a Forum Ambassador in 2017.  In those days it was Tableau staff that chose the Ambassadors (not like these days where it’s public nominations).  It was an amazing feeling that someone thought that I had contributed so much that I would even be considered an Ambassador. 

I was a Forum Ambassador for 4 years straight – 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.  I don’t need to remind anyone what happened in 2020, Covid changed the entire world and I had to switch from working in-person “in the office” 40 hrs/week to working from home, but also struggling to find continuous work as it felt like the world was shutting down and consulting/contracting work was evaporating pretty rapidly.  I had to completely change the way my business operated and my participation in the Forums had to take a much lower priority.  When the nomination period came around I got that dreaded email – “Unfortunately our team decided not to offer you a spot in the program this year.”.  I was shattered, I appealed but the only response I received (2 weeks later) was a meeting invite – a 15 minute meeting at 4am in the morning.  I declined the meeting because it was fairly obvious that the decision wasn’t going to change and I had to prove that I should participate properly in the Forums in order to be offered the role again.  I did, and I was an Ambassador in 2022 again (for the fifth time).

2022 ...

So several years of being an Ambassador and attending Tableau Conference (since 2016) you get to meet a lot of DataFam (a term that didn’t exist in 2016!) and it’s great to spend 20-30 mins at times talking to friends on the other side of the world.  The topic of conversation this time last year was – who are these people?  Because there are some Ambassadors (myself included) that spend a STUPID amount of time on the Forums, answering a LOT of questions on a daily basis and you get to know/remember people that are also online a lot.  But the 2022 cohort did have quite a few strangers – people that I didn’t recognise, and when I chatted to other Ambassadors no one recognised some of the new faces either. 

What is a Forum Ambassador?

Let’s change subjects for a minute – what is a Forum Ambassador and what do they really do?  This is where I start to diverge from the current definition.  

My definition (the “old school” definition) is that a Forum Ambassador is someone who contributes to the forum – answering questions, helping people learn how to use Tableau better and moderating posts (removing dodgy links, deleting spam, approving new posts, etc).

In all the years I’ve been an Ambassador there are guidelines explained at the beginning of each cohort.  Pretty simple – 15 posts per week OR 60 posts per month …. It’s a rough guideline, not something concrete but a guide to what you should be doing.

There is also gamification – the “all new” Leaderboard (it hasn’t changed in a few years) @ https://community.tableau.com/s/leaderboard and if you believe in gamification (you don’t have to) this is the place to be – anyone can see who ranks where in Posts, Points, Best Answers, Rising Stars (people that have been there for less than 12 months) and Topic Leaders.  Take a look at the Leaderboard, change the date filters and check out the names …. You will recognise  a few people for sure.

BUT, the “new school” definition of a Forum Ambassador is leaning towards gamification is not important (that’s OK), but also answering posts is not important, being online is not important and the new theory is that you don’t have to compete for points and you should be able to answer less questions per month and they are more technical questions that take longer to answer.  I have always disagreed with this, if you’re not logged in then you can’t see these questions when they are posted and other Ambassadors who are online will answer the posts anyway.  If you’re curious about Unanswered Questions then there’s a dashboard for that (we are really data & dashboard geeks right?) @ https://community.tableau.com/s/unanswered-questions and if you follow the legend you will see that the vast majority of unanswered questions are when people don’t include any attachments to assist and you might also find that they post a question and never login again.

My argument is that if you’re an Ambassador who posts less than 10 times a month, you’re really just another forum member who contributes when possible and not really at the Ambassador level of contribution.

OK, back on track …

I’m a data geek, I’ve loved playing with data and presenting it in interesting ways since the mid-90s (YES, I am that old), so I asked the correct Tableau staff for access to the data – the data that powers the Leaderboard, the data that will show (even for just me personally) how I am performing and how the cohort is performing – my request was declined.  So I decided to write my own data scraper – every day I scrape certain Forum members being the Ambassadors, some Tableau staff and some of those “Tableau Next” people (the up and coming that should be considered in future years).  The results were surprising, I didn’t quite trust them at first, but I refined the dashboards over several weeks, tested them against my own activity and started to discuss my findings.  

(Now I know I’m being very silly in a way – I’m ONLY looking at the data and not taking into account anything else that’s going on – personal situations, private conversations, etc..  it can be a VERY one-sided view when you only look at the data.  But at the same time, the Community Leaders (that’s all the Ambassadors and Visionarys) are told we are allowed to ask the tough questions, we are allowed to challenge, and our opinion is important.)

So I started to ask questions:

  • Did you know that a certain Ambassador hasn’t logged in for over 30 days? , but then it became 60, then 90, then over 100.  An Ambassador, that doesn’t login for over 100 days – should they be receiving a “please explain”, are they being contacted at all ? (no, not allowed to ask questions like that), maybe they need help or support ?, maybe something has happened (career or personal) ?

 

  • What happens to Ambassadors that don’t post enough (referencing the guidelines above) ?  Yes, I know it’s only a guideline but (as above) less than 5 posts per month when you’re an Ambassador is just not good enough (in my humble opinion)

 

  • What happens to Ambassadors who simply login, they don’t do anything else – no posts, no comments, simply login.  My guess is they just want to bump the “last login” date so it looks like they are doing something.

 

These questions were never answered (and I can understand why), but there was never an answer – not even to “have you contacted them to check they are ok?” – nothing

It wasn’t just me thinking this, chatting with other Ambassadors there was a feeling that some Ambassadors do the right job and some are just …. well, not really doing the job.  But at the same time, the feeling was that you don’t say anything because that might jeopardise future nominations (i.e. you don’t want to lose your Ambassador status because you spoke up about the process and other Ambassadors)

July 2023 …. Ambassador nominations are open

So I sent an email, an email complaining about the things I have mentioned above. An email saying that several Ambassadors felt the same way, but do not want to speak up because … well, you know.

I also mentioned in the email that “Ambassadors approve new user content” is simply not true.  The decision was made over a year ago that Ambassadors did not need to approve new user posts, it was more important to allow a new user to post and have the post visible immediately.  That’s why you see a lot more spam on the forums now – any person (well, let’s be realistic it’s a bot, not a real person sometimes) can register on the forums, post ANYTHING (a legit question, spam links, some diatribe about whatever) and the new rule is that Ambassadors should NOT delete this, we simply flag it so that a Salesforce employee can remove it. (The obvious problem is that bots operate 24 by 7 by 365 and Salesforce employees are online less than 40hrs/week) and as some Ambassadors have noted – check the spammy bot posts on a Friday evening (USA time) when Monday is a public holiday.  The bot coders are smart people, they want maximum impact and the Tableau forums are a high-traffic, high profile site so a highly appealing target.

Anyway, the reply to the email was basically that Salesforce creates the rules and new content is approved daily.  I replied saying the new content approval was simply not true, but (again) no reply to that email at all.  I know it’s not true, I see the spam every day but obviously there’s KPIs around post counts, new members, page views, etc that are more important than quality posts, having Ambassadors actually approve content (so no one has to see the spam, least of all Google …. Google will derank a site that contains too much spam)

August 2023 …

There’s always private conversations about who are you nominating, what for, who should be included, or who should not.  Some people even post publicly on social media that they are submitting nominations – it’s a good thing, it helps raise the profile.

I know that several other people nominated me for Forum Ambassador, I spent a few hours nominating a list of people for various Ambassador channels as well.  It’s what you do as Community and DataFam.  I nominated people that I’ve never met before, who live in countries that I’ve never visited, but I nominated people that deserve it.  I imagine that some of these people would be as surprised, shocked and humbled as I was when I received that first email.

And then later in the month the opposite happens, the private conversations change to “have you received THAT email ?”.  If you receive an email there’s an approval process that you have to follow NDA, bio, photo, etc … the usual stuff.  If you don’t receive an email, well, maybe you’re not part of the process. 

September 2023 ...

OK, so I still haven’t received the email.  I don’t want to expose that I know that others have, so I send a private message asking when the emails are being sent out … no reply, just radio silence – INTERESTING.

Then in the last few days it really heats up …

Wed night – I received an email (that is also cc’d up the Community hierarchy at Salesforce several levels) saying “Our most important responsibility as community managers is to ensure that we are creating a constructive environment where everyone feels welcome.” and that “Upon careful review and consideration, it was deemed that the tone used in the Forums and on other channels does not uphold the spirit of these guidelines.“ – OUCH!!! … and “other channels” when was that criteria invented?

Thurs morning – I wanted to reply immediately, but I drafted a reply, slept on it overnight (well, not much sleep) and sent the email in the morning (cc’ing all) basically saying why has this never been discussed previously, also addressing some of the items I’ve outlined above, some (not so nice) comments about the Community spirit that is dwindling (that might be the tone) and if I do post in a negative manner there are other Ambassadors that do the same thing.  I also highlighted that in the last year I was 4th in the Best Answers leaderboard (over 500 best answers) and second in the Posts leaderboard (because no one can beat …. Oops, no names here!), but anyway over 4300 posts in the last year.

Later on, I sent a Slack DM to the executives that were included in the email, roughly apologising for dragging them into this problem.  The highest executive replied pretty quickly saying that the faith is with the employees that the correct decision was made, but it would be investigated further and hopefully get back to me soon.

Fri morning – 2023 Ambassadors are announced.  I have to say that I have mixed feelings about the Forum Ambassador selection (I can’t comment on the other channels, I really don’t have enough information but there are some surprising choices there).  I’m really happy to see some Ambassadors continuing on, I’m very happy to see some new additions to the cohort and I hope they continue kicking goals as they have done over the last 6 months BUT then there’s the disappointing selections – those Ambassadors that don’t do anything, I just don’t get how they can be considered as Forum Ambassadors (well, according to my definition)….

There’s …

  • A 2022 Ambassador who logged in 16 times in the last 10 months, and has only replied less than 200 times (in total, ever) and hasn’t logged in for 6 weeks.
  • A multi-year Ambassador who really only becomes active in May-June of each year (I’m guessing in order to “requalify”) and just does the “pile on” (simply agreeing with previous posts or rewording slightly)
  • There’s several 2022 Ambassadors that have posted under 100 times in the last 10 months.
  • A new Ambassador with less than 10 posts, less than 50 comments, less than 1000 points.

 

BUT, that’s my logic, not Salesforce.  I don’t expect anyone to be like the Top 10 for the last year, I’m not saying that.  I would expect that Ambassadors actually participate in the Forums.

So, the future …

I know that no one will “stand up” for me – not that I don’t have friends, but in the conversations that I’ve had over the last 48 hrs, no one is “game” to complain because it’s now been proven that there will some reason that will be used to remove them and most people (just like me) are extremely proud to be an Ambassador. (well, I used to be …. no point worrying about that any more!)

I also know I’ll never be an Ambassador again.  Based on this last week I don’t really want to be, but I know there’s enough Salesforce staff that will block it and I can’t fight that – and this blog post seals my fate, right?

I’ll never be a Visionary for the same reason, I’m the “squeaky wheel”, I’m happy to challenge and ask the tough questions but I speak up when I see an avenue for improvement or when things could be done better to make it better for everyone.  Obviously, some people don’t like that, they don’t understand my personality well enough and I can understand that as well.

I never thought I would have to write all this, and it turned out a lot longer than I thought (congrat’s if you’re still reading this), but I had to provide some context and be fair on both sides where I could.  My kids (sorry, “young adults – MEGA Taylor Swift fans”) have been singing Taylor Swift songs like “Look what you made me do” and “We are never getting back together”, but they also understand how much I value the Tableau Community, the Ambassador program and my feelings about Tableau and the recent events.

I know this will reflect poorly on me, but I have to express my frustration and also answer a lot of questions that I’ve received (and will continue) about not being an Ambassador this year.  The program is a shell of its former self and although I hope it will improve there’s only one chance per year, right? …. Please make it count this time next year.

Oh, while I’m here, hopefully, one day there will be:

  • An explanation why post counts drop, mysteriously for no reason – even for people that haven’t logged in for over 2 years every so often their post count drops.
  • The ability to have a sig and be able to @mention people at the same time.  This bug has been around for over 2yrs, due to some conversations at TC23 I found out how to fix the bug, but still not implemented for anyone to use. It feels like a very simple bug to fix, but I don’t have access to the source code to make the changes.
  • The ability to upload multiple attachments on a reply.
  • A warning when someone attaches a TWB file, but again there’s other KPIs that will be affected when this functionality improves the efficiency of the forum.



Again, thank you for reading if you got this far.  I hope to approve all comments (just not the bot spam)

9 Responses

  1. There is so much I could say here & so much I want to do (like message leadership & say “do you know what you’re doing to the community?” Maybe I will. I sometimes miss being an Ambassador and I’m probably in the same boat as you. But, there is a sense of freedom with not being beholden to the brand they want to create. Thank you for speaking up! Just know that I’m here to chat/commiserate/celebrate.

  2. Hey Chris,
    I’m really sad to read about your experience. Times have certainly changed since the early days of the community, I miss the days with Jordan and Amanda. Forum quotas are the most brutal out of every Ambassador, and quite unfair, and I do know how much you’ve contributed over the years – you should be really proud of the impact you’ve had. Sadly, all of the logic in the world is not going to shift the selection process, even when it’s mentioning the programs rules!

    This year I decided to step down when I felt I was no longer being heard. It was clear I had a different perspective on how to support the community, and rather than advocate for the datafam I decided it was time to step aside and create space for people who were aligned with the sf vision. When I decided to step down I wrote a message to the community team and the only one who responded was Caroline, says a lot after 7 years of service. You’re either part of the inner circle, or not.

    I want you to know you’re not alone in how you’re feeling, there are plenty of others who would reach out to me privately when I was speaking up – but they weren’t confident to be shouted down by people who were aligned with the sf vision.

    I hope time heals the sting of this odd rejection, just remember how many people you’ve helped and encouraged along the way – I’m sure you’ve changed the careers of many people.

    Take care, Fi

  3. Thank you for these lines, Chris. It reminds me of the Chapter: “When the most passionate employees become quiet” in the book “Unlock the hidden leader” by Gifford Thomas.

    Please don’t become quiet, especially not in the community user forum. I can feel the pain this is causing to you and I hope you can cope with it. I really hope I will meet you at a community event. You are someone I look up to.

  4. Good god, what a whinger.
    You weren’t invited back because you weren’t being an ambassador, more a forum champion than anything: its not a bad thing, you do spend an inordinate amount of your personal time helping as many people as possible, its just that, there’s more to being an ambassador than answering questions.

    It was great to read that you were honoured when you first received the nod back in 2016, feeling that your forum input had been recognised, but for subsequent years, you expect to continue based solely this output, to the point that by 2021 you were shocked to no longer be considered. And then 2023 – well, how dare Tableau ditch you so unceremoniously.
    But why does it matter to you whether you are or aren’t an ambassador?

    The problem is that you do not engage as an ambassador, more of a forum “champion” or “answer jock”, most forums have these, including Reddit.
    These are the guys who are in it for the grind, their sole purpose is to answer the revolving door questions, where users are more like ‘punters’ than anything.
    This isn’t an ambassador.

    Opinions vary, but generally speaking, an ambassador needs to provide a greater presence. They need to be much more involved than just answering questions: They help build the community; work towards developing users’ skills by explaining why something works the way it does, rather than simply how to do it; helping-out and providing advice on threads that do not generate credit-points such as ideas; they moderate threads, and evaluate answers against thread-requirements, closing-off with a best answer, long after the OP has flown the coop, providing that all important credit to the responder, and they help with the administrative functions too.
    It’s only Salesforce employees and Ambassadors and Visionaries who are granted permissions to create blogs, this is your chance to really shine and demonstrate sound product knowledge, but you haven’t written a single blog, and your Tableau Public portfolio is a little sparse too.

    In short, you make only the bare minimum of a contribution, yet think this is enough to earn a place on the following year’s programme.
    ***

    What gives you the right to analyse ambassador performance?

    This was shocking and horrific to read, especially as Tableau had denied you access to the data, possibly on account of knowing why you wanted it.
    Yet you persevered in making an ILLEGAL webscrape tool to gather the data nonetheless; you are so very lucky that Salesforce/Tableau Software hasn’t prosecuted you for data theft for that stunt.
    And then having obtained the data, you decided on the bar between good and bad, and proceeded to report those you felt weren’t meeting YOUR target, HOW DARE YOU!
    Ambassadors and Visionaries give their time freely, we aren’t paid, so what gives you the right to analyse this and determine who should be punished and ultimately, fired?

    And why do you think that a user needs to be highly ranked with many posts before they can be considered for a position?
    Maybe the user is new to the forums, but is an expert user, community membership does not determine skill level: I had used Tableau for 3 years, and taught it for a year before joining the forum back in June 2011; being a forum newbie, would you have said in August 2011 that I was inexperienced?

    You should know that I am extremely vocal AGAINST the gamification, as it is far too easy to cheat the system.
    Points should only be awarded based on votes and best answers, not for every interaction, this way, users are measured on merit rather than input, which makes for a healthy community.
    Big deal if an OP disappears not marking as correct, other users might still find the interaction useful, you’ll notice I NEVER sign-off my posts asking/reminding users to mark as such, as for me, it’s not why I’m here.

    Are you so blind that you haven’t realised that employers use the community and Public to evaluate potential candidates?
    Public for Tableau skill, and the community as a measurement of problem solving and working with others.
    It’s for this very reason why I DON’T answer every question that comes through the door: I have enough points to hold my own, and would much rather pursue the more complex challenges that might take several hours to work on, but the sole reason for not answering every question is simply that to do so, denies newer members from building their profiles.
    Imagine how you would feel if new to the tool, you haven’t the skill of the Flerlage twins, but can help answer questions from even newer users, only to find they’ve already been answered by the Chris’s, and Jim’s, and Ken’s of the world? How long will it take for you to become disenchanted with the community? A month? A week? A day even?

    We do not want to build an unbalanced community, which is only patrolled by top leaders, where is the talent here?

    I’m amazed at the amount of complaining you’ve made to state your case.
    You weren’t selected for the 2023 intake as Tableau wanted some fresh faces, a new direction, and probably because you didn’t display all the required behaviours, get over it.

    And what was the point of your second blog entry, still complaining, still trying to return despite signing-off the first with “I also know I’ll never be an Ambassador again. Based on this last week I don’t really want to be”.
    You never really embraced the ambassador-programme, sticking as a champion, have had very public disagreements with a number of forum users, used demeaning language both in thread and in private chats in the Slack and Google Meet calls: I remember one such conversation sometime around May 2023 where you openly said on a call that you’d happily tell the user to “rack-off”. Really?!

    You lack integrity and professional courtesy, and despite your comment in blog 2: “and I’m happy to be proved wrong as well because it shows that I need to learn more as well. “, you’re not happy at all. You cannot accept criticism, and you’ve even taken aim at me in the past, attempting to thwart my hard-evidence with comments of “I was once told by x, y and z” – well that settles it then, and how have you evaluated this?
    And other channels by-the-way is likely to include the regular group calls, and Slack discussions. Slack is Tableau’s own internal distro, we Ambassadors and Visionaries are guests, with every interaction in the public channels visible and open to scrutiny from every Salesforce employee; I’m guessing you were discourteous one-too-many-times on these channels as well

    I get it, you’re a contractor, I’ve been there and have interviewed other contractors who are just as arrogant. Some contractors feel they need to be, as winning work can be difficult when the talent pool is large, and technical tests may not be up to scratch, and if you just aren’t good enough to win work based on merit, or maybe you’re not so good at technical tests, or lack a portfolio of work demonstrating skill, then maybe arrogance is all you have left.

    But it might not be that you are necessarily discourteous, or arrogant, or plain difficult, I’m leaning more towards a misunderstanding of you. I’m told that when explaining things, my demeanour can change from light-hearted and jovial, to sharp and piercing-cold. Its not intentional, but guys tell me that this unexpected change often makes my recipient(s) feel really frickin’ tiny, and its only when people get to know me that they realise that I’m not behaving like this on purpose, I’m still me. But it can be hard to recognise and modify on the spot.
    Although my deadpan comedic delivery greatly benefits from this sharp side, which can make it doubly hard to determine whether I’m just a nasty b****rd or just telling a joke.

    So, I don’t believe that your “Rack-off” was ever meant in anger, probably more a light-hearted jibe.

    But it’s as Emily has said, you haven’t been denied access to the community, you are still free to continue your amazing work as a forum champion as you have been, the only difference is that you no longer have a badge – pfh! Who cares, really? No longer bound by the NDA and contract, sure you can’t have “Tableau Ambassador” in your signature, but you could have “Tableau Ambassador 2016-2022” instead – sure you weren’t an ambassador for 2021, but I don’t think anyone will notice or care.
    What matters most is that you have previously been a Tableau Ambassador, for a number of years but you’ve now stepped-down. This doesn’t make you a loser, it makes you wisened, skilled, and dependable. And above all, someone who wants to help but has a more interesting personal life, so can no longer commit to the forum like they used to.

    See, its not all bad.

    And despite our professional disagreements, I still respect you, your skill, and the insights you bring to the community.
    And have recently marked two of your answers as best, after the OP has said their thanks and trotted off into the sunset.

    1. Steve,

      I’m not going to reply to every point that you’ve raised, I’m not going to change your point of view and you’re not going to change mine, but just to address some of the points that are interesting in your post:

      1) Tableau Public profiles are not a measurement of Forum Ambassador performance, you should know this.

      2) webscraping is NOT illegal, I’m not the first person to do it and there are several current Ambassadors that webscrape the forums periodically. Please check legalities before posting incorrect information.

      3) “YOUR target” … If you’re talking about the guidelines, they are set by Salesforce. You should know that, you should be in the same meeting that I was in at the start of every year to explain the guidelines. The rest are simply rhetorical questions … more thought-provoking than anything else.

      4) “more complex challenges that take several hours to work on” – really? PLEASE! Show me the last time you worked on a reply for more than 1 hr. But you’d rather do that then help someone that has a simple question and it takes you 2 minutes to reply and help them – ok, that’s fine, but I’ll answer ALL unanswered questions – the simple ones and the hard ones. Imagine if you’re a new user and stuck on a problem that just doesn’t get replied to because it’s “being left for someone else to reply”

      5) please don’t comment on my personality, knowledge or professional conduct. You have never met me in real-life and because we live 17,000 km apart we probably never will meet. You don’t know me, so you can’t comment.

      6) “no longer bound by the NDA” – again, you need to check your legalities. The NDA doesn’t expire, it applies in perpetuity.

      1. Well, you are in Australia, whereas I am in the UK, and webscraping could fall under the limitations of s1a of the Computer Misuse Act 1990: A person is guilty of an offence if—
        (a)he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer [F1, or to enable any such access to be secured]

        So I suppose this will be a question of interpretation, but for me (and my law degree), scarping here would be using a computer to secure access to data. The difference here is that there is a difference in simply viewing that which has been made available, and making a copy of that data for your own use, nefarious or otherwise.
        But I suppose its not so much a question on the laws of where the person is domiciled, but rather, where the website and/or company is based, in which case, we look to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 & the Computer, Fraud and Abuse Act 1986.
        Two cases that come to mind are Ryanair Ltd v PR Aviation BV [2015], where PR Aviation was scraping flight times; and NLA v Meltwater [2013] where the defendant was scraping news information.
        In NLA, the Supreme Court held that the scraping did infringe copyright as the information mined was a creative work, whereas in the later case of Ryanair, the Supreme Court rejected the claim as the scrape only contained flight times and numbers. So the likely clue here is the copying of creative work, which is probably exactly what Tableau Community interactions are likely to come under.
        But, the Supreme Court did hold that where a website owner makes explicit references to such activity within its terms, that those terms form a binding contract, and failure to adhere to those terms can result in action for breach of copyright and potential for possible criminal action depending on how the data is used.

        The excellent news for you is, that Tableau has such terms that cover all sites under the “tableau.com” domain: https://www.tableau.com/tos
        And under Description of Service paragraphs 2 & 3, Tableau/Salesforce makes it abundantly clear that users do not have rights to any IP works without permission – which was refused to remember:
        “Using the Service does not give you ownership of any intellectual property rights to the Service, including any Content, Salesforce Software or Limited Version that you may access. You may not use Content from the Service unless you obtain permission from Salesforce or its owner, or unless you are otherwise permitted by law.”

        And further down the terms: Your Use of the Service part h:
        “Using the Service does not give you ownership of any intellectual property rights to the Service, including any Content, Salesforce Software or Limited Version that you may access. You may not use Content from the Service unless you obtain permission from Salesforce or its owner, or unless you are otherwise permitted by law.”

        And finally, just in case there’s any confusion, the laws here are governed by Seattle in the US state of Washington. So although you aren’t domiciled in the US, you are still bound by these terms.

        And so, this would be one those times that you had a chance to learn something but decided against it as you believe your opinion to be correct in the face of hard evidence.

        Points 1 & 3, again, you are an answer jock. And whilst you are correct these do not expressly form part of the contract of what an Ambassador should do, barely lifting a finger besides answering questions isn’t really an ambassador now is it, c’mon, you can’t really be serious in thinking you can get away with just doing the very basics yet hold the prestigious ‘Tableau Ambassador’ title, this is a working position.

        4. I can show you lots, two current pieces I’ve been looking into for 2-3 days now are: https://community.tableau.com/s/question/0D58b0000CBX546CQD/nested-if-difference
        And https://community.tableau.com/s/question/0D58b0000CBX5ndCQD/removing-value-all-from-the-filters – this guy contacted me direct, and we had an hour’s zoom call about his particular problem, its mostly how they are structuring their data in the backend that is causing the problem so I’m trying to work this blind as I’m unable to see the data, just go with the hierarchy given during the call.
        And then there’s our little spat about cSQL – you are aware I’ve spent more than 6 hours on that with you, the video I created especially for you took me more than 3 hours, mostly to remove my um’s.

        5. I was actually being nice, giving you a leg-up, offering an explanation as to why your personality might have been misread and/or misunderstood, did you not see everyone’s face when you used the “rack-off”? But you’ve just kicked sand in my face – again.

        6. Again, I was trying to be nice, by letting you know that you can now come and practice that which you so love without being bound over by the terms of the Ambassador contract, for which the NDA forms part of. You are correct, once signed, just like the Official Secrets Act, they are perpetually binding – my mistake here, I simply referred to the wrong item. But nevertheless, you still chose to read this negatively.

        What is it with you? Why do you hate me so much? And why are you so negative all of the time?
        So you lost your badge because you upset some people and didn’t display all the required behaviours, big deal, move on, worse things have happened at sea.

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