December 29, 2008 at 5:38 am
Some solutions and best practices apply irrespective of the version. What about a structure where the version is broken out only if it is significant. For example:
Administration
General
Backup & Recovery (backup, restore...)
2008 specific
2005 specific
2000 specific
...version... specific
Security and Auditing (logins, users, roles, schemas)
...version... specific
High Availability (Mirroring, Clustering, Log Shipping)
...version... specific
Performance and Tuning
...version... specific
Replication
...version... specific
Development
T-SQL - Any questions on the T-SQL language or code issues
...version... specific
.NET programming - With regards to querying SQL Servrs
...version... specific
SQL CLR - Assemblies
...version... specific
- Randall Newcomb
December 29, 2008 at 5:49 am
randall.c.newcomb (12/29/2008)
Some solutions and best practices apply irrespective of the version. What about a structure where the version is broken out only if it is significant. For example:Administration
General
Backup & Recovery (backup, restore...)
2008 specific
2005 specific
2000 specific
...version... specific
Security and Auditing (logins, users, roles, schemas)
...version... specific
High Availability (Mirroring, Clustering, Log Shipping)
...version... specific
Performance and Tuning
...version... specific
Replication
...version... specific
Development
T-SQL - Any questions on the T-SQL language or code issues
...version... specific
.NET programming - With regards to querying SQL Servrs
...version... specific
SQL CLR - Assemblies
...version... specific
hmmm seems little bit complicated!?
December 29, 2008 at 5:51 am
I agree. Consolidating the forums is a great idea. There really are too many to manage or browse through. I still think you should seperate them by version though. Even 2005 and 2008 are different enough in my opinion to warrant a split.
Something like:
Version
Administration
Development
Performance Tunning
Disaster Recovery
Business Intelligence
You may still want to have a forum for third party tools or CLR, or some of the odd ball stuff that will unecessarily clutter any other forum. Unfortunately, that type of set up won't reduce the overhead much.
You could combine Performance Tuning with Administration and Development. That would make it four forums per version for a total of 20 forums. Not great, but better.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
December 29, 2008 at 5:54 am
Thinking about it a bit more, you could combine older versions. Anything released 10 years ago or more will go into a "Previous Versions" folder with a the same four or five sub-folders. At this point it would be 7 & 6.5. A year from next week, you'd move 2000 there. I'm not sure if that's possible, or practical, but it would reduce the number for forums pretty radically.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
December 29, 2008 at 6:06 am
I like the idea of compressing the forums down and having either a checkbox or dropdown list on the Thread Header / Title that asks for a version. This way people don't have to think about adding the version into the actual verbage of the post.
Sort of like:
SUBJECT: ____________ VERSION: (Dropdown List)
DESCRIPTION: _____________
MESSAGE:
Then the forum code could prepend the version to the title. Example, "Insert Error - Duplicate Key" might be someone's title and then the version would be SQL 2000. So in the forum, you'd see "SQL 2000: Insert Error - Duplicate Key". That way people could search on the SQL 2000 or SQL 2005, etc. threads within the forums. And you could have a general list of forums like:
SQL SERVER ADMIN
General admin (for stuff that doesn't belong in any of the more specific admin sections)
Backup/Restore
Replication
Security/auditing
Data Corruption
SQL SERVER DEVELOPMENT
T-SQL
CLR Development
Performance Tuning
Business Intelligence
Analysis Services
Reporting Services
Integration Services
DTS
SQL SERVER GENERAL
Design and Strategy (for discussions of the theoretical concepts or planning)
High Availability
Database Design
Relational Theory
Hardware
General Strategies (for stuff that doesn't belong in the more specific forums)
Outside of SQL
Other database platforms (for problems interacting with Oracle, DB2, MySQL, Progress, etc)
SMO/RMO/DMO
Powershell
MISC
Certifications
Career Stuff (a catch-all that would include the job hunting, employee/employer relations, etc.)
Anything Not About SQL Server
Conventions & Seminars (Announcements about PASS, SQL Saturday, etc.)
I really think we should keep the Certifications Forum. It's really popular.
If everyone would rather go with Gila's suggestion, though, I like it with a caveat. She listed SQL 2000 / 7 as one forum, but that causes the very problem that made Steve write this editorial to begin with. So, here's a revised version:
SQL 2005/2008
General admin (for stuff that doesn't belong in any of the more specific admin sections)
Backup/Restore
Replication
Security/auditing
T-SQL
CLR Development
Performance Tuning
SQL 2000 and Earlier
General admin
Backup/Restore
Replication
Security
T-SQL
Performance Tuning
Data Corruption (move this to a single forum on its own)
Business Intelligence
Analysis Services
Reporting Services
Integration Services
DTS
Design and Strategy (for discussions of the theoretical concepts or planning)
High Availability
Database Design
Relational Theory
Hardware
General Strategies (for stuff that doesn't belong in the more specific forums)
Outside of SQL
Other database platforms (for problems interacting with Oracle, DB2, MySQL, Progress, etc)
SMO/RMO/DMO
Powershell
Adding trustworthy moderators to the forums would also help out. Of course, you'd want to pick people who get online regularly, but also have time to help out with such things.
December 29, 2008 at 6:38 am
The only issue I see with most of the suggestions above is that if you combine 2005 and 2008, you will not be able to move the 2005's out in a few years. I'd look at separate 2008 and 2005, then an "All previous versions". Just combine versions into the "all previous versions" when they go off support.
Like Jeff, I don't see much of a big deal either way. I use the "recent posts" almost exclusively anymore, so it doesn't much matter what forum it's under. I do think the prompt for what version would be helpful, but if any only if we can get an accurate answer (we can't seem to get folks to post under the right version now, so I am not sure it will get used).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
December 29, 2008 at 6:52 am
Matt Miller (12/29/2008)
Like Jeff, I don't see much of a big deal either way. I use the "recent posts" almost exclusively anymore, so it doesn't much matter what forum it's under. I do think the prompt for what version would be helpful, but if any only if we can get an accurate answer (we can't seem to get folks to post under the right version now, so I am not sure it will get used).
I agree that getting them in the "correct forum version is and always will be an issue. I also thought the idea of adding a drop down defaulted to "select a version" that was required had merit. That could then be used to automagically move the post to the proper version forum and/or added to the post meta data so that we wouldn't have to guess which version they were using. Perhaps that could be something you could set to a default value in your forum profile with a reminder once every year or so to take a look and make sure it's still correct?
-Luke.
December 29, 2008 at 7:00 am
I guess I'm in the minority in thinking that having things split up by version isn't the way to go...
There's just too much general admin/development functions and wisdom that apply across versions that may get lost on someone who only reads, say the 2005 forum, because it's posted in 2008. The same can apply the other way, when something gets posted in one spot and it's missed by a chunk of readers who really know what they're doing in that area. They may miss it just because the OP happens to be using a specific version of SQL and started the thread there.
When you go to post, just tag your subject with your version. Even the forums wind up going more of a hybrid direction, a subject like "[2005]Doing Point-in-Time restore, getting weird error with the last TLog" is a lot more helpful than "Hay guys! Stuck in restore hell, send halp!1!!"
I have to admit, I don't post here very often (I think this is Post #2), becasue the first times I looked at the forum list I was scared away. As I scrolled down the page, it just kept going, and going, and going... Things were too spread out for me to be able to read everything that I was interested in becuase I would spend more time navigating than reading. I cut my forum teeth at Ars Technica, so I can forum whore with the best of them, but I feel like everything's a bit too spread out here.
Just $.02 from a noob 😉
December 29, 2008 at 7:49 am
Kerry Tyler (12/29/2008)
There's just too much general admin/development functions and wisdom that apply across versions that may get lost on someone who only reads, say the 2005 forum, because it's posted in 2008. The same can apply the other way, when something gets posted in one spot and it's missed by a chunk of readers who really know what they're doing in that area. They may miss it just because the OP happens to be using a specific version of SQL and started the thread there.
Thing is, the ways to do a lot of things differ greatly over the versions, especially between 2000 and 2005. If all the versions were consolidated, I can promise that the first reply made to most threads would have to be "What version of SQL are you using?"
Great for our post counts, bad for fast and useful replies.
When you go to post, just tag your subject with your version. Even the forums wind up going more of a hybrid direction, a subject like "[2005]Doing Point-in-Time restore, getting weird error with the last TLog" is a lot more helpful than "Hay guys! Stuck in restore hell, send halp!1!!"
Most people, however, won't do that. I really wish they would.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
December 29, 2008 at 8:04 am
It looks like most people like separation by versions, and perhaps that still makes sense. My guess is that most people won't list their version, and probably most people today pick the right forum for their version.
Likely I've just been sensitive since I see the issues and not all the things that work well.
I'd still be interested in what we can do to easily consolidate some of the existing forums together.
December 29, 2008 at 8:07 am
Thank good design in that you won't have to change a post URL. Any idea how many external links there are back into here? Whoosh!
ATBCharles Kincaid
December 29, 2008 at 8:10 am
I like the suggestion from Brandie about forcing users to select a version when they post. That would allow you to have one basic taxonomy, easily know what the situation is when answering, and provide a very simple way to filter (which is what the copy over taxonomy is giving you).
If you change the post form, you can also update it to include some other things that might be helpful; reminders to post code, link to etiquette, etc. Maybe even make it eas(ier) to upload code, ddl, etc.
December 29, 2008 at 8:12 am
Sorry, one more point - if you tag every post with a version, with a little work you can let users select which view they want - do they want to see all admin, or only 2008 admin. That might let you satisfy most of the posts here.
December 29, 2008 at 8:51 am
It would be nice for OP's to have a simpler forum structure. I think I am like most regular posters, in that I use the Active Threads page almost exclusively, so the forum structure only affects me when I am replying to a post in a 2005 forum that should be in a 2000 forum.
I think the best suggestion so far is Pradeep's, where you have a version free structure and require the OP to select a version and add that to the post header. You'd still get people who select the wrong version, but odds are that they would be in the correct forum.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
Check out these links on how to get faster and more accurate answers:
Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help
Need an Answer? Actually, No ... You Need a Question
December 29, 2008 at 9:21 am
Here is my 2 cents. Look at it from a business analyst perspective. One would not be concerned about the version first, but rather the 'area' of this issue. As such, start on the high level with the general area, then split it into SQL versions under that instead. That way, it would also be easier to e.g. look under BACKUP, drill into SQL Server 2000, and see something in there and also have the facility to then look under SQL server 2005 under BACKUP to see how thing are different VS SQL Server 2000.
BACKUP PROCEDURES
SQL Server 2000
SQL Server 2005
PERFORMANCE TUNING PARAMETERS
SQL Server 2000
SQL Server 2005
Regards, Hamad
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