March 5, 2009 at 5:59 pm
This is a site maturity question for http://www.sqlservercentral.com
When you exceed one million SQL Server 'professionals' I think you have to ask how many are really are really professionals, and how many just use SQL Server sometimes and can't even manage to press F1 in SSMS in order to find the answer a question.
I have been working with SQL Server since 6.0 so I know quite a lot about it now. I have about 15 years experience, and I despair at some of the contributions the regulars seem pleased to address from very ignorant users.
Some of you guys are clearly BRILLIANT and KNOW LOADS. (Some others just think they do). So why do you respond to people who can't be bothered with the basics!!
I am picking Gail (who I have never seen a poor answer from) as an example just for today .. there are loads more of you bright guys I could choose...
So Gail (sorry to pick you out but your regular contributions make you a candidate) why did you even engage yesterday with a guy who claimed that using a SAN was a really bad idea for a SQL database. YES you did .. I saw it. And we both know his point was not worth a dime.
The point being, this resource can either be great for experts to discuss, or devalue to a site where people just ask how they can backup a database. Over and over and over again,
On a more positive note, perhaps Steve Jones can think of a better way to divide the questions up.
Regards
Tim
.
March 5, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I guess I would wonder why it can't be both? I was one of the people who knew little when I first joined SSC, and while I don't think I'm an expert, I believe I am competent, and at least part of the reason is because folks like Gail, Steve, Jeff, and many others, who know more were willing to help out someone who was sometimes lost and sometimes still am.
I know I help with the simple questions because, number one, I can answer them and two because I like to help people learn and develop new skills. I think that's why most of the regular posters do it. I think you will notice that most of the time the regular posters don't just give a solution, but try to lead the OP to the answer and explain why things are the way they are.
Unfortunately you are right, there are a lot of people out there attempting to support SQL Server that probably shouldn't be. Maybe they are a small business owner who bought a third party product that uses SQL Server and, until the problem they need help with, they didn't even know what SQL Server was, they just knew that their inventory program was not working anymore and the vendor wasn't much help or no longer exists.
Again, I think that SSC can be both a place for the experts and the newbies, especially the ones who want to learn. There are plenty of questions about clustering, log-shipping, data corruption, and the like that are advanced topics where experts who aren't interested in helping the ignorant users can spend their time.
Hey there are a million members, even if 5 to 10% are true experts I think SSC is doing fine.
To end this long response. Steve actually has asked if there might be a better way to setup the forums and there were a lot of ideas. So maybe there will be an Advanced SQL Topics only forum, but then again what's advanced to me may be simple to you, so who decides?
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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March 5, 2009 at 6:50 pm
I'll start by saying everyone deserves to helped out at some point. Some of the people who come here have been "thrown to the wolves" and have no real idea what they need to do and are looking for a support group somewhere.
Others may just be lost, and don't understand what they have read in BOL or other places and are looking for additional clarification.
Yes, we have those that "think" they know things but don't really. They may be getting their information from others that don't really know either and except it as fact until they find out otherwise.
We all started at the don't know squat side of things, and some of us just had the desire to learn on our own. That's how I started, and then I found this site, and I have learned much more from participating here at SSC.
March 5, 2009 at 7:36 pm
[font="Verdana"]Sometimes a little hand holding can go a long way. Like pointing people to Books Online. "Wait, there's a 'books online'? Who knew!" We take a lot of basic stuff for granted, but everyone starts knowing very little. So it doesn't hurt to help out a bit there.
People learn in different ways as well. Reading dry reference material sometimes isn't enough, and having a discussion about something can be a lot better.
No one knows it all. We all learn new stuff every day, and sometimes answering questions helps with that.
Finally, it's often the case that in the process of asking a question, you can help solve it. Forums are invaluable for that. A little prompt in the right direction can do wonders with that as well.
[/font]
March 5, 2009 at 7:55 pm
This is corny, but I think most of the people who volunteer answers do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They care enough to give something back and share the wealth. Even more, pretty much all of the regulars care that the best answers come forward... even if it means going into way more discussion than the OP might have wanted to hear, and even if it means trying to talk the OP out of doing something that is ultimately going to cause more problems.
Saint Lynn is correct in that a lot of people have just been thrown to the wolves and need some help, any help, in getting started. Some people don't know the right word to search on, because they have never been exposed to the concepts yet. There is much less enthusiasm for answering questions that are obviously homework assignments or interview questions.
Less altruistically, they say if you want to really understand something, teach it. Some of the problems presented are novel and fun to solve. I have learned a LOT since visiting here became a daily habit. Now my objective is to try to earn the respect of my peers (and my betters) on this site.
__________________________________________________
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. -- Friedrich Schiller
Stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down. -- Stephen Stills
March 5, 2009 at 8:43 pm
There is real value in responding to even really stupid posts by people that are completely clueless and hopeless in their stupidity.
If no one responds to those sorts of things, they gain currency as accepted truth by people not knowledgeable enough to judge the merits. Think of it as pest control.
Don’t think you are above becoming the victim of a stupid idea that has gained credibility by being allowed to go unchallenged. Maybe you’ll start a new job and find that the whole shop has implemented a bad practice that someone saw posted on a message board. Or find that you didn’t get a job because you didn’t “know” that you should use a NOLOCK hint on every statement.
March 6, 2009 at 12:48 am
OK, there are some great points here and perhaps I was being rather uncharitable when I wrote it. It came off the back of trying to research an issue and finding that 95% of what I got back was very basic stuff that was obscuring the golden nugget I needed.
I suppose that the really key point as you've said is to strongly challenge statements that are incorrect because otherwise in the end people believe them.
Which I guess is exactly what was being done in the SAN point I started off with.
Tim
.
March 6, 2009 at 2:49 am
t.walker (3/5/2009)
So why do you respond to people who can't be bothered with the basics!!
Personally, because I'm eternally hopeful that perhaps they will learn and improve themselves. Sure, only a small portion do, but when someone does it's well worth the effort involved.
So Gail (sorry to pick you out but your regular contributions make you a candidate) why did you even engage yesterday with a guy who claimed that using a SAN was a really bad idea for a SQL database.
Because if I hadn't and someone ran across that thread while looking for info on SANs and SQL server, they may well have taken his comment as fact and gone away convinced that SANs are not good for SQL databases.
Remember that not only the people posting on the threads see it. How may people find this stuff via google and only read, never post?
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
March 6, 2009 at 6:08 am
Just speaking for myself, I'm posting for three reasons. First, I've been helped in the past, so I try to help others. Second, this is a fantastic learning opportunity. When I'm trying to pick up a new skill, I'll scan the posts for questions on that skill. When they come up, I try to answer them or I read the answers from the real experts, or my answers get corrected by the real experts, but regardless, I learn. Third, because I know I'm going to need help one day and the guy I helped yesterday could be the same one that helps me tomorrow.
Oh, and because I get points... gotta have points.
"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:
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March 6, 2009 at 7:01 am
t.walker (3/6/2009)
OK, there are some great points here and perhaps I was being rather uncharitable when I wrote it. It came off the back of trying to research an issue and finding that 95% of what I got back was very basic stuff that was obscuring the golden nugget I needed.I suppose that the really key point as you've said is to strongly challenge statements that are incorrect because otherwise in the end people believe them.
Which I guess is exactly what was being done in the SAN point I started off with.
Tim
Here is what I have found out since becoming a part of this community, most of the people that ask for help are usually inexperienced individuals seeking help. Unfortunately, most of them just want the answer to thier specific problem/question and don't really care about learning something new or increasing thier skills. We all know these people at work, they are the ones who do just enough to get by and don't go the extra distance. They may even have X years experience in the field, but what they actually have is 1 year experience X time over.
Then you have those few who really want to learn and expand thier knowledge and skills. It is those individuals that make helping all the others worth the effort. The reason is you never know who the diamond in the rough is going to be.
The more experienced individuals in this community have asked for help when they experience a problem that they can't solve, but this doesn't tend to happen too often, which could explain why you were having problems finding something on a more advanced concept/issue/problem.
If you take the time to join us, I think you will find the same to be true. It's those few times that you see a light bulb turn on that makes everything worthwhile.
March 6, 2009 at 9:37 am
I'll answer for myself, but interesting comments above.
I started in this business by reading a lot and asking questions on the MS public Usenet back in the mid 90s. I got help and appreciated it, and was happy to start giving back. I think that as you progress in your life and career, once you get past the survival/learning phase in your area, you become successful, you look to move on. And moving on from there is "giving back" to others. That's answering questions, writing articles, and teaching others.
I don't mind basic questions First they're east, but second, think about this. If you move into a new area, say like video editing. Last year I needed to learn how to do a few things for the podcasts. I read and tried to learn. That helped, and I've learned a lot.
But I also ran into questions that I thought were basic, but I couldn't find an answer. I had no desire to be an expert, and searching for someone with a previous question, at times, is a hassle. If it's not on the first page or two of Google, I'm done. It's arguable, a waste of my time because I don't know how to search. So I ask a question, and hope some other expert in that area helps me.
Tim, it's a good topic, and I'm not sure I'm answering you well, but really I think you have to answer the expert's questions, guide them in your direction and let them know when something doesn't work for you and you need more help. You also have to recognize sometimes that experts reach a point where we don't have a relatively quick solution and either
- you need to use what we say
- figure it out yourself
- hire someone.
Anything beyond a quick answer or solution gets into consulting. And if you want/need that level of help, you should pay someone for their knowledge.
March 6, 2009 at 9:50 am
I am not an expert and never claimed to be an expert. When ever I have asked for help, I always got it. So I try to give back with what ever knowledge I have.
One more thing, I am no Saint like Lynn... 😀
I have a selfish reason for hanging around here. I learn. I see different problems come up, And I see different approaches to the problem. I get to learn.. Quite a bit.
One thing about SAN... If I had choice of having a cluster with Hard wired Raid configuration instead of SAN, I would go for Raid. Call me Old school or Stupid.
-Roy
March 6, 2009 at 9:52 am
I answer a lot of basic questions pretty much every day. Honestly, those are what most people need most of the time. And search (Google or otherwise) is only as good as you know what keywords to plug in.
(People who've read this the thousand other times I've posted it can skip this paragraph.) 9 years ago, when I first started handling databases, I had a horrible time of it, because I didn't know what to ask or what to search for. I knew how to use "Now()" in VBA/VBS to get the current date and time, but hadn't read about "getdate()". How do I find "getdate()"? I've gone over that in depth on another post, but it took a LONG time to find just the name of the function, because I didn't know where to start.
Lots of new DBAs, or people who've been forced to handle DBA functions by business-necessity, are in that same boat. They don't know where to start looking. So they come here, find the "Newbies" forum, start with an appology about "Sorry if this is a waste of your time, but..." and ask their question. Often, they word the question poorly, and equally often, what they ask for isn't what they actually need.
So I help them, or at least try to. Half the time, I never hear back from them, and don't know whether they got the answer they needed and just didn't return and say so, or whether they gave up on it. But even in those cases, I can hope that what I wrote helped them, or that it will help someone else who comes across that thread.
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March 6, 2009 at 10:53 am
I'm also not an expert, but like the others, I post because a) someone has helped me and b) it helps me learn and forces me to step out of my environment and think about something else for a bit. I remember a time when I needed to use a really messy 2 or 3 level nested case solution to format something for my user a certain way. I kept getting an error, I stared at the code for 30 minutes or perhaps more trying to figure out where my syntax error was before I posted it to SSC. All I needed was a second set of eyes because I'm the only DBA here. It was silly something like I missed an END at some point. Easy question? Of course. Helped by someone here? Of course. Am I willing to be a second set of eyes for someone else who may need it? Of Course.
What comes around, goes around. It's not what you get it's what you give and whatever other cliche you think is appropriate.
-Luke.
March 6, 2009 at 11:46 am
I have to admit that I am not really a Saint. I just have made a decision that if I am going to try and help someone, I am going to try and give them my best. That is where my perseverence and tenacity came into play trying to get to the root of the OP's problem and trying to understand what they are trying to accomplish. Yes, there are times I just want to quit, but what if the positions were changed? Would i want someone who was trying to help me just give up because we had a problem understanding what the other was trying to say or do? Not really.
I will even step out of my comfort zone to try and help if I can. Why, because then I have the opportunity to learn something as well. Plus, sometimes all that is needed is a different perspective when it comes to looking at a problem.
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