Are the posted questions getting worse?
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The Dixie Flatline (5/3/2012)
However, I reserve and defend the right to continue "snarking" here in The Thread. 😀Snarking is fair enough, but I hope "boojuming" is banned. :rolleyes:
Tom
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SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
One possible test is to imagine one's mother reading the post before hitting 'reply' and wondering if it would make her proud.I'm not sure The Thread actually has any special status; it's just a thread like any other, and indexed by search engines just the same.
My mom was a systems analyst, she'd probably ask why I was wasting my time on idiots. She doesn't mince words.
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When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
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It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams -
I have a database with around 500 tables. I needed to duplicate all these tables in a different schema and dreaded scripting each CREATE TABLE from the existing ones to do it.
I was looking around and found Generate Scripts, what a great feature! I don't know how often it'll be useful, but it changed a several hour job to one that took under a minute.
Every time I find something like this, I wonder what other great things I'm missing.
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When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
--------------------------------------
It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams -
Lynn Pettis (5/3/2012)
SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
One possible test is to imagine one's mother reading the post before hitting 'reply' and wondering if it would make her proud.Not trying to make my mom proud (God bless her). Heck you should have heard her at times.
Perhaps replace 'mother' with 'future employer', the local value for $deity, or something like that.
More seriously, I do wonder whether the things Sean mentioned harm SSC's reputation, and maybe even contribute to, dare I say it, the posted questions getting worse - as the more professional question askers choose to go elsewhere...?
Paul White
SQLPerformance.com
SQLkiwi blog
@SQL_Kiwi -
SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
Lynn Pettis (5/3/2012)
SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
One possible test is to imagine one's mother reading the post before hitting 'reply' and wondering if it would make her proud.Not trying to make my mom proud (God bless her). Heck you should have heard her at times.
Perhaps replace 'mother' with 'future employer', the local value for $deity, or something like that.
More seriously, I do wonder whether the things Sean mentioned harm SSC's reputation, and maybe even contribute to, dare I say it, the posted questions getting worse - as the more professional question askers choose to go elsewhere...?
Not sure. Having lurked on other sites, we seem pretty tame. It could be we answer the well asked questions easily and quickly so don't notice them as much. It is the questions that are questionable that seem to draw more attention as people try to help. We notice post counts going up and we join in with the intention of trying to help and then it spirals out of control from there.
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Sean Lange (5/3/2012)
Just an observation and a friendly reminder./soapbox on
We are starting to lean too far to the arrogant side with many of our replies (and yes I am guilty myself sometimes). Things like links to google or lmgtfy and smart a$$ responses when it seems that sometimes it is a language barrier that prevents good communication. We don't want this awesome community to end like all the other cold, snarky and far less useful forums out there. We have a really cool and unique atmosphere on this forum and it seems like it is slipping into the dark side quite a bit lately.
/soapbox off
Agreed. I posted on this thread about the same thing a week or so ago. I'm nervous we're losing site of the need to be helpful, full stop. Not helpful if they're worthy or if they ask the question in just the right way or if they have adequate English skills or if they're nice. We need to try to be helpful and when we can't, just walk away, not call out the individuals as seems to be happening. In some ways, I'm wondering if The Thread itself is somewhat to blame. It gives us a quick way to gang up and that's dangerous.
Anyway, I agree.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
Lynn Pettis (5/3/2012)
SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
Lynn Pettis (5/3/2012)
SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
One possible test is to imagine one's mother reading the post before hitting 'reply' and wondering if it would make her proud.Not trying to make my mom proud (God bless her). Heck you should have heard her at times.
Perhaps replace 'mother' with 'future employer', the local value for $deity, or something like that.
More seriously, I do wonder whether the things Sean mentioned harm SSC's reputation, and maybe even contribute to, dare I say it, the posted questions getting worse - as the more professional question askers choose to go elsewhere...?
Not sure. Having lurked on other sites, we seem pretty tame. It could be we answer the well asked questions easily and quickly so don't notice them as much. It is the questions that are questionable that seem to draw more attention as people try to help. We notice post counts going up and we join in with the intention of trying to help and then it spirals out of control from there.
I do agree with that. I just spent about six weeks posting on StackOverflow & StackExchange. The long term people there can be quite nasty. We're very calm & nice by comparison.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
Grant Fritchey (5/3/2012)
Sean Lange (5/3/2012)
Just an observation and a friendly reminder./soapbox on
We are starting to lean too far to the arrogant side with many of our replies (and yes I am guilty myself sometimes). Things like links to google or lmgtfy and smart a$$ responses when it seems that sometimes it is a language barrier that prevents good communication. We don't want this awesome community to end like all the other cold, snarky and far less useful forums out there. We have a really cool and unique atmosphere on this forum and it seems like it is slipping into the dark side quite a bit lately.
/soapbox off
Agreed. I posted on this thread about the same thing a week or so ago. I'm nervous we're losing site of the need to be helpful, full stop. Not helpful if they're worthy or if they ask the question in just the right way or if they have adequate English skills or if they're nice. We need to try to be helpful and when we can't, just walk away, not call out the individuals as seems to be happening. In some ways, I'm wondering if The Thread itself is somewhat to blame. It gives us a quick way to gang up and that's dangerous.
Anyway, I agree.
Yes, The Thread does give us a quick way to gang up and I agree it is dangerous. With that, we really need to be careful. But it also gives us the ability to get more experienced people into a thread where more help is needed. We have all been there at one time, trying to help a poster only to find out we are out of our depth and other help is needed.
But The Thread is also a social place. Look back over the past 3+ years. Many of us have developed friendships here on SSC, and part of it is due to The Thread. We have learned things here that I don't think anyone on the other sites may have learned about each other there.
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SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
Lynn Pettis (5/3/2012)
SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
One possible test is to imagine one's mother reading the post before hitting 'reply' and wondering if it would make her proud.Not trying to make my mom proud (God bless her). Heck you should have heard her at times.
Perhaps replace 'mother' with 'future employer', the local value for $deity, or something like that.
More seriously, I do wonder whether the things Sean mentioned harm SSC's reputation, and maybe even contribute to, dare I say it, the posted questions getting worse - as the more professional question askers choose to go elsewhere...?
Yes, they do cause people to make choices not to ask questions.
Do they go somewhere else? Not necessarily - because most other sites are far worse. But they do put people off, and make them think twice about asking.
The people they *won't* deter are the ones who end up discussed here as problems - that group isn't deterred by feeling belittled for an honest attempt to solve a problem.
They can also deter newer folks from trying to help - because if there's someone who is going to jump on them for making a mistake or not recommending the "ideal" solution in the eyes of a long term poster, why bother trying to assist?
I've made bone-headed mistakes when asking questions. In one case, one that wasted a bunch of folks time (forgot to mention that the tally table I was using only had 4k records in it and didn't limit the query, because I'd built the data set in a completely separate test database and didn't use my normal utility tables.). A couple of you nicely allowed your systems to be eaten up by my bad sample data and process - and treated me amazingly politely after we all realized my silly mistake.
If, instead of being treated well by those folks, I'd been insulted, told I had no idea what I was doing, or been roasted over here in the thread (we don't know how many people lurk here), my opinion of the people involved would be quite different.
Now - think about being in a situation where you need to hire a SQL expert to come in and help with a problem system. You have some experience with some of those experts on this site. Do you hire the amazingly brilliant person who tends to snark people whose areas of expertise are different than theirs, or do you hire the excellent person who treats everyone they run into well?
I completely understand how very, very frustrating it can be to deal with the same issues over and over again. And how hard it can be to be pleasant and polite when it seems that people aren't listening. Just keep in mind that it's not just the OP reading the things we post - and someone can trip over those posts years later when searching for a solution.
We only get one chance to create a first impression. Do you want your first impression to be set by a frustrated, annoyed post at an OP?
Here ended my 2 cents. Lurk mode reactivated. 🙂
Edited to fix a couple of annoying grammar errors.
-Ki
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Grant Fritchey (5/3/2012)
Lynn Pettis (5/3/2012)
SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
Lynn Pettis (5/3/2012)
SQL Kiwi (5/3/2012)
One possible test is to imagine one's mother reading the post before hitting 'reply' and wondering if it would make her proud.Not trying to make my mom proud (God bless her). Heck you should have heard her at times.
Perhaps replace 'mother' with 'future employer', the local value for $deity, or something like that.
More seriously, I do wonder whether the things Sean mentioned harm SSC's reputation, and maybe even contribute to, dare I say it, the posted questions getting worse - as the more professional question askers choose to go elsewhere...?
Not sure. Having lurked on other sites, we seem pretty tame. It could be we answer the well asked questions easily and quickly so don't notice them as much. It is the questions that are questionable that seem to draw more attention as people try to help. We notice post counts going up and we join in with the intention of trying to help and then it spirals out of control from there.
I do agree with that. I just spent about six weeks posting on StackOverflow & StackExchange. The long term people there can be quite nasty. We're very calm & nice by comparison.
I quit another SQL site after a new poster got called very nasty things just because he corrected a long-time member of that site.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverabilityWe walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass -
SSC is at 1,499,895 and counting!
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Lynn Pettis (5/3/2012)
SSC is at 1,499,895 and counting!Wow if the same rate continues we should hit 1.5M by the end of the day today or certainly tomorrow.
_______________________________________________________________
Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/ -
some what on topic: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1294729-392-1.aspx i am starting to get to the end of my knowledge on this one. also am i at least looking in the right places for the performance issues. Read lots but not much practical experience.
For faster help in answering any problems Please read How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help - Jeff Moden[/url] for the best way to ask your question.For performance Issues see how we like them posted here: How to Post Performance Problems - Gail Shaw[/url]
Need to Split some strings? Jeff Moden's DelimitedSplit8K[/url]
Jeff Moden's Cross tab and Pivots Part 1[/url]
Jeff Moden's Cross tab and Pivots Part 2[/url] -
Sean Lange (5/3/2012)
Lynn Pettis (5/3/2012)
SSC is at 1,499,895 and counting!Wow if the same rate continues we should hit 1.5M by the end of the day today or certainly tomorrow.
Now standing at 1,500,114., congrats to Steve!
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Deja View - The strange feeling that somewhere, sometime you've optimised this query before
How to get the best help on a forum
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537
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