Are the posted questions getting worse?

  • Jeff Moden - Friday, May 18, 2018 9:04 PM

    Abandon yea of all hope.  The SPAM is back again.

    C'mon, Redgate.  Time to get your junk straightened out.  If you can't even control a forum, do you think new customers will trust you with their data?  Think about it.

    Fallacy. These two things aren't even remotely related.

  • That spammers constantly find new ways to auto submit some things. There certainly are some holes in the site, and we've avoided trying to make it difficult to post, since the people that post for the first time aren't often jumping through hurdles if we make it hard.

    Not sure why this weekend we became a spam target, but some of the limiting factors don't kick in until there are a few reports.

  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:20 AM

    Jeff Moden - Friday, May 18, 2018 9:04 PM

    Abandon yea of all hope.  The SPAM is back again.

    C'mon, Redgate.  Time to get your junk straightened out.  If you can't even control a forum, do you think new customers will trust you with their data?  Think about it.

    Fallacy. These two things aren't even remotely related.

    True. We all know that but Jeff has a valid point. It certainly can't help the credibility when the forum is such a mess. I can see how someone who doesn't know anything about Redgate could be suspect their database software is not that great when their forum software is glitchy and spam ridden. Such is the burden of a public facing site such as this. It is all part of what existing and potential customers experience. And it is all part of the perception.

    _______________________________________________________________

    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/

  • Sean Lange - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:40 AM

    Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:20 AM

    Jeff Moden - Friday, May 18, 2018 9:04 PM

    Abandon yea of all hope.  The SPAM is back again.

    C'mon, Redgate.  Time to get your junk straightened out.  If you can't even control a forum, do you think new customers will trust you with their data?  Think about it.

    Fallacy. These two things aren't even remotely related.

    True. We all know that but Jeff has a valid point. It certainly can't help the credibility when the forum is such a mess. I can see how someone who doesn't know anything about Redgate could be suspect their database software is not that great when their forum software is glitchy and spam ridden. Such is the burden of a public facing site such as this. It is all part of what existing and potential customers experience. And it is all part of the perception.

    While it's true that these two are not related, SSC is part of the Redgate brand.  The fact that SSC simply doesn't work as well as it should is a black mark on the rest of the brand. 
    And, to contradict myself, what do you expect?  It's free!

    Michael L John
    If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
    To properly post on a forum:
    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/

  • Michael L John - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:53 AM

    Sean Lange - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:40 AM

    Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:20 AM

    Jeff Moden - Friday, May 18, 2018 9:04 PM

    Abandon yea of all hope.  The SPAM is back again.

    C'mon, Redgate.  Time to get your junk straightened out.  If you can't even control a forum, do you think new customers will trust you with their data?  Think about it.

    Fallacy. These two things aren't even remotely related.

    True. We all know that but Jeff has a valid point. It certainly can't help the credibility when the forum is such a mess. I can see how someone who doesn't know anything about Redgate could be suspect their database software is not that great when their forum software is glitchy and spam ridden. Such is the burden of a public facing site such as this. It is all part of what existing and potential customers experience. And it is all part of the perception.

    While it's true that these two are not related, SSC is part of the Redgate brand.  The fact that SSC simply doesn't work as well as it should is a black mark on the rest of the brand. 
    And, to contradict myself, what do you expect?  It's free!

    Not only is it free it has been a huge contributor to my knowledge of sql server. Have met (virtually at least) many new friends and learned a ton of stuff here. I was not actually complaining but pointing out how a subpar website can add some discredit to the company running it. It really is unfortunate. The forum upgrade a couple years ago has been a kind of step backwards in a lot of ways for me. The UI is really buggy and frustrating. I know it has affected how much time I spend on this forum trying to help because I want to avoid getting frustrated that I just can't type correctly in the text editor.

    _______________________________________________________________

    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/

  • Sean Lange - Monday, May 21, 2018 9:29 AM

    Not only is it free it has been a huge contributor to my knowledge of sql server. Have met (virtually at least) many new friends and learned a ton of stuff here. I was not actually complaining but pointing out how a subpar website can add some discredit to the company running it. It really is unfortunate. The forum upgrade a couple years ago has been a kind of step backwards in a lot of ways for me. The UI is really buggy and frustrating. I know it has affected how much time I spend on this forum trying to help because I want to avoid getting frustrated that I just can't type correctly in the text editor.

    +1 to the text editor. "Simple" things like the indentation of my SQL being lost when I paste drives me crazy. >_<

    Thom~

    Excuse my typos and sometimes awful grammar. My fingers work faster than my brain does.
    Larnu.uk

  • A question for all the BBQ aficionados.
    First, some background. We're organizing a BBQ contest with the help of the Kansas City Barbeque Society for a non-profit. I'll have to create/manage the website and my wife is in charge of the marketing. We don't have all the BBQ culture that you might have, so I'd like to ask what would be important not to miss in the website and promotional materials for an event like this? There's obviously a whole team organizing this (and we're the only mexicans) but at times I feel that they're as lost as we are.
    If someone wants to share some suggestions, you could PM me to prevent flooding the the thread. Or you could use the thread to stay away of the spam complaints.

    Luis C.
    General Disclaimer:
    Are you seriously taking the advice and code from someone from the internet without testing it? Do you at least understand it? Or can it easily kill your server?

    How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help: Option 1 / Option 2
  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:20 AM

    Jeff Moden - Friday, May 18, 2018 9:04 PM

    Abandon yea of all hope.  The SPAM is back again.

    C'mon, Redgate.  Time to get your junk straightened out.  If you can't even control a forum, do you think new customers will trust you with their data?  Think about it.

    Fallacy. These two things aren't even remotely related.

    Yes, it is a fallacy.  But, you did say that you rely on Redgate's developer availability and, fallacy or not, everyone knows that Redgate owns SSC.  With that, understand that perception will frequently override esoterically known fallacy and it may be affecting potential new customers.

    Setting all that aside for a minute, can we at least get the code windows fixed to at least what they were before this latest change (Which is what?  At least 2 years ago now?)  I know several of us were working with the makers of the forum software last year to provide them with help and examples of both features and faults and there have been several "threats" that an improvement, but they keep disappearing.  It would really be nice to be able to cut'n'paste code directly from SSMS and actually have it show up in a reasonable format without having to go through NotePad or something else first.  Heh... the ability to paste SQL Code on an SQL Forum is a wee bit important. 😀

    And, yes... I also appreciate what you're going through on all of this.  You're hands are pretty well tied to the whims of "corporate".  Please don't take any of this personally.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Luis Cazares - Monday, May 21, 2018 10:11 AM

    A question for all the BBQ aficionados.
    First, some background. We're organizing a BBQ contest with the help of the Kansas City Barbeque Society for a non-profit. I'll have to create/manage the website and my wife is in charge of the marketing. We don't have all the BBQ culture that you might have, so I'd like to ask what would be important not to miss in the website and promotional materials for an event like this? There's obviously a whole team organizing this (and we're the only mexicans) but at times I feel that they're as lost as we are.
    If someone wants to share some suggestions, you could PM me to prevent flooding the the thread. Or you could use the thread to stay away of the spam complaints.

    Who is the "non-profit" and where can we get the event details?

    As a bit of a sidebar, a Scratch'n'Sniff invitation may double the attendance. 😀

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Jeff Moden - Monday, May 21, 2018 10:16 AM

    Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:20 AM

    Jeff Moden - Friday, May 18, 2018 9:04 PM

    Abandon yea of all hope.  The SPAM is back again.

    C'mon, Redgate.  Time to get your junk straightened out.  If you can't even control a forum, do you think new customers will trust you with their data?  Think about it.

    Fallacy. These two things aren't even remotely related.

    Yes, it is a fallacy.  But, you did say that you rely on Redgate's developer availability and, fallacy or not, everyone knows that Redgate owns SSC.  With that, understand that perception will frequently override esoterically known fallacy and it may be affecting potential new customers.

    Setting all that aside for a minute, can we at least get the code windows fixed to at least what they were before this latest change (Which is what?  At least 2 years ago now?)  I know several of us were working with the makers of the forum software last year to provide them with help and examples of both features and faults and there have been several "threats" that an improvement, but they keep disappearing.  It would really be nice to be able to cut'n'paste code directly from SSMS and actually have it show up in a reasonable format without having to go through NotePad or something else first.  Heh... the ability to paste SQL Code on an SQL Forum is a wee bit important. 😀

    And, yes... I also appreciate what you're going through on all of this.  You're hands are pretty well tied to the whims of "corporate".  Please don't take any of this personally.

    I don't see this as fallacy and I think Jeff has a very valid point, mainly "practice what you preach" 
    😎
    Further on Jeff's suggestions, certainly it would not be hard to do an SSMS/SOS add-in which allows one to post directly to SSC!

  • Jeff Moden - Monday, May 21, 2018 10:16 AM

    Yes, it is a fallacy.  But, you did say that you rely on Redgate's developer availability and, fallacy or not, everyone knows that Redgate owns SSC.  With that, understand that perception will frequently override esoterically known fallacy and it may be affecting potential new customers.

    Setting all that aside for a minute, can we at least get the code windows fixed to at least what they were before this latest change (Which is what?  At least 2 years ago now?)  I know several of us were working with the makers of the forum software last year to provide them with help and examples of both features and faults and there have been several "threats" that an improvement, but they keep disappearing.  It would really be nice to be able to cut'n'paste code directly from SSMS and actually have it show up in a reasonable format without having to go through NotePad or something else first.  Heh... the ability to paste SQL Code on an SQL Forum is a wee bit important. 😀

    And, yes... I also appreciate what you're going through on all of this.  You're hands are pretty well tied to the whims of "corporate".  Please don't take any of this personally.

    Not taking it personally, but I would also say that some of the complaints are emotional reactions, which is always hard to take too seriously.

    With regards to developers, all of you work in companies, and people aren't interchangeable. There are people that build our products. They are not the people that do internal development or web stuff. They aren't a resource I have. I have to compete with resources from internal IT, which does systems that we need, like sales stuff, marketing, enhancements to redgate.com, etc. These are limited resources, and I fall somewhere between all that stuff.

    Second,  the forums are a tricky item. We've shied away from too many changes because we then can't upgrade. What we can do is make requests of the developer, and we sometimes send them code. Getting more of that done is tough, especially as our resources on this side a limited and it's a tough job to write code and send it off, but not see it implemented for some time.

    We have a project to rebuild this site, minus forums. A piece of that work is to upgrade the forums to the latest version. We're slightly behind. I have no idea what's still broken, but you can certainly complain or post for the forum vendor (http://community.instantasp.co.uk/). Maybe a series of additional feedback from people-who-aren't-us will get them to consider other changes. The text editor is problematic, but it's also something that lots of people use just fine. It's a relatively few number of you, important to us but not the only group we listen to, that has bigger complaints. Believe me, I think formatting matters, and it is embarrassing for me personally things don't work better, but I can't change them.

    Part of the big argument is that SSMS is a POS in terms of how it deals with text and formatting, much more complex than most other editors. On the plus side, most of us live there and code for SQL Server works well there. We've gotten used to the format, but it's a one-off. One reason why MS won't port it or do a lot of work on it.

  • Sean Lange - Monday, May 21, 2018 9:29 AM

    Michael L John - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:53 AM

    Sean Lange - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:40 AM

    Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Monday, May 21, 2018 8:20 AM

    Jeff Moden - Friday, May 18, 2018 9:04 PM

    Abandon yea of all hope.  The SPAM is back again.

    C'mon, Redgate.  Time to get your junk straightened out.  If you can't even control a forum, do you think new customers will trust you with their data?  Think about it.

    Fallacy. These two things aren't even remotely related.

    True. We all know that but Jeff has a valid point. It certainly can't help the credibility when the forum is such a mess. I can see how someone who doesn't know anything about Redgate could be suspect their database software is not that great when their forum software is glitchy and spam ridden. Such is the burden of a public facing site such as this. It is all part of what existing and potential customers experience. And it is all part of the perception.

    While it's true that these two are not related, SSC is part of the Redgate brand.  The fact that SSC simply doesn't work as well as it should is a black mark on the rest of the brand. 
    And, to contradict myself, what do you expect?  It's free!

    Not only is it free it has been a huge contributor to my knowledge of sql server. Have met (virtually at least) many new friends and learned a ton of stuff here. I was not actually complaining but pointing out how a subpar website can add some discredit to the company running it. It really is unfortunate. The forum upgrade a couple years ago has been a kind of step backwards in a lot of ways for me. The UI is really buggy and frustrating. I know it has affected how much time I spend on this forum trying to help because I want to avoid getting frustrated that I just can't type correctly in the text editor.

    Excellent points all the way around, Sean.  I value SSC, but I find that with the current state of the forum editor, reading is much less frustrating than posting.  I've learned a lot from the site and want to help others, but it's become difficult to do so.  I believe it'll get fixed one day, even if that day is not today.

  • I will leave it at this;  ARRRGGGHHH.

  • Jeff Moden - Monday, May 21, 2018 10:21 AM

    Luis Cazares - Monday, May 21, 2018 10:11 AM

    A question for all the BBQ aficionados.
    First, some background. We're organizing a BBQ contest with the help of the Kansas City Barbeque Society for a non-profit. I'll have to create/manage the website and my wife is in charge of the marketing. We don't have all the BBQ culture that you might have, so I'd like to ask what would be important not to miss in the website and promotional materials for an event like this? There's obviously a whole team organizing this (and we're the only mexicans) but at times I feel that they're as lost as we are.
    If someone wants to share some suggestions, you could PM me to prevent flooding the the thread. Or you could use the thread to stay away of the spam complaints.

    Who is the "non-profit" and where can we get the event details?

    As a bit of a sidebar, a Scratch'n'Sniff invitation may double the attendance. 😀

    It's the Rotary Club of Dunwoody (member of Rotary International). The profit will be mainly donated to a cause yet to be defined (could be polio erradication, a project to supply clean water to communities or some other project) and a small part would be used for projects within the community and different scholarships. The details are not yet available, as the event is still in the planning stage.
    I'm not sure if Scratch'n'sniff is something that still exists. 😀

    Luis C.
    General Disclaimer:
    Are you seriously taking the advice and code from someone from the internet without testing it? Do you at least understand it? Or can it easily kill your server?

    How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help: Option 1 / Option 2
  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Monday, May 21, 2018 11:13 AM

    Jeff Moden - Monday, May 21, 2018 10:16 AM

    Yes, it is a fallacy.  But, you did say that you rely on Redgate's developer availability and, fallacy or not, everyone knows that Redgate owns SSC.  With that, understand that perception will frequently override esoterically known fallacy and it may be affecting potential new customers.

    Setting all that aside for a minute, can we at least get the code windows fixed to at least what they were before this latest change (Which is what?  At least 2 years ago now?)  I know several of us were working with the makers of the forum software last year to provide them with help and examples of both features and faults and there have been several "threats" that an improvement, but they keep disappearing.  It would really be nice to be able to cut'n'paste code directly from SSMS and actually have it show up in a reasonable format without having to go through NotePad or something else first.  Heh... the ability to paste SQL Code on an SQL Forum is a wee bit important. 😀

    And, yes... I also appreciate what you're going through on all of this.  You're hands are pretty well tied to the whims of "corporate".  Please don't take any of this personally.

    Not taking it personally, but I would also say that some of the complaints are emotional reactions, which is always hard to take too seriously.

    With regards to developers, all of you work in companies, and people aren't interchangeable. There are people that build our products. They are not the people that do internal development or web stuff. They aren't a resource I have. I have to compete with resources from internal IT, which does systems that we need, like sales stuff, marketing, enhancements to redgate.com, etc. These are limited resources, and I fall somewhere between all that stuff.

    Second,  the forums are a tricky item. We've shied away from too many changes because we then can't upgrade. What we can do is make requests of the developer, and we sometimes send them code. Getting more of that done is tough, especially as our resources on this side a limited and it's a tough job to write code and send it off, but not see it implemented for some time.

    We have a project to rebuild this site, minus forums. A piece of that work is to upgrade the forums to the latest version. We're slightly behind. I have no idea what's still broken, but you can certainly complain or post for the forum vendor (http://community.instantasp.co.uk/). Maybe a series of additional feedback from people-who-aren't-us will get them to consider other changes. The text editor is problematic, but it's also something that lots of people use just fine. It's a relatively few number of you, important to us but not the only group we listen to, that has bigger complaints. Believe me, I think formatting matters, and it is embarrassing for me personally things don't work better, but I can't change them.

    Part of the big argument is that SSMS is a POS in terms of how it deals with text and formatting, much more complex than most other editors. On the plus side, most of us live there and code for SQL Server works well there. We've gotten used to the format, but it's a one-off. One reason why MS won't port it or do a lot of work on it.

    I have to admit... you were the last one that I would have expected to play the ol' emotional wild-card. 😉

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

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