Well, well, well … there has certainly been a lot of chat about Eddie’s new OraQA site over the past couple of days, to a degree that I wanted to clarify some of my own thoughts after reading other blogs. In no order at all (other than the order they fall out of my head …)
1) Community Fragmentation. From my original blog …”but if there are many sites serving a particular purpose, maybe it’s a distraction?” A lot of people seem to have taken this as a criticism of diversity. If you read that comment carefully, though, the key words for me were ‘a particular purpose’. I’m very keen on mass participation in and of the Oracle community and there are many out there who would confirm that I encourage everyone to write papers, present, start blogs etc. (I’d like to think some of them might post comments here confirming that). There’s room for everyone and most people will have an interesting story to tell that will add to my experience. I think what was really behind that comment and perhaps I would have been more honest but didn’t want to hurt Eddie’s feeling was this :- What does OraQA achieve that the cooperative FAQ doesn’t already achieve, with more substance? Or even OraFaq? Consider this :- if Eddie, me and everyone else decided that, instead of creating new question and answer sites, we’d all decide to contribute to one q&a site (kind of co-operatively, if you will) , then that site would have so much more value as a result. Remember, I’m talking about the specific species – Q & A sites. That has nothing to do with blogs, articles, presentations or whatever. We can all still write our own personal material in our personal style. However, if a Q & A site is to be a valuable resource, the bigger and more correct it is, the better as far as I’m concerned. There are many views on what ‘community’ might mean but ‘everyone doing their own thing’ isn’t the only one!
2) Howard. I know it’s contentious to even start commenting about an individual (an ‘ad hominem’ even – thanks Howard, I finally took the trouble to look it up although, as a football fan, I still like ‘playing the man and not the ball’) when he’s been clear in trying to stick to the substance. However, (and I’ll be very frank here) I don’t always see eye to eye with Howard; I think he does tend to get pretty upset about things that I might not; actually, I could add a whole list of personal differences here and he can vouch for that… but I personally agree with what he has to say and I don’t think he’s having a dig at anyone personally. Here’s an experiment for you. Look at the question that he had a problem with then look at the article he wrote on the same subject. There’s simply no comparison in the quality and depth of the material. That’s not to denigrate the rather neat idea expressed on OraQA but I, like Howard, get concerned about reductionism when it comes to Oracle technical matters. I’ll tell you the truth. When I was trying to come up with a question and answer for Eddie’s site, I was stumped. My head just isn’t full of nifty single-liners because I can’t think of many Oracle subjects I could address properly that way. At least on the co-operative FAQ, there’s scope for long answers, later updates and so on – all on the same page.
So let’s not decide that people are just being grumpy stick-in-the-muds. When you’re asked what you think about a site, you can only say what you think, right? So here’s what I think. What’s wrong with the co-operative FAQ? If there’s nothing wrong with it – why don’t we all just post there instead of coming up with a new one?
Oh, and Eddie? I still love you to bits 😉
Doug Burns wrote…
I encourage everyone to write papers, present, start blogs etc. (I’d like to think some of them might post comments here confirming that).
Hmmm, do you encourage people? Let’s look back at one of your
older posts…
It was my first ever presentation at UKOUG.
I saw you come in and take an aisle site, it was only after reading your blog that I realised you had done that in order to make a quick getaway.
You said…
“I was torn for the next agenda slot, because I wanted to attend the second of Jonathan’s CBO presentations, but decided to attend Lisa’s ‘Help! I’m a Newbie!’ instead. I wanted to give her a bit of moral support and so I wandered in, intending to sit at the back, see her get underway and then slip out to go and see Jonathan. Then it occurred to me that that could really put her off, so decided to stay for the whole thing. She did really well for a first attempt, didn’t run over and managed to be pretty funny too. This blog also got a mention. Well done Lisa!
Now that is what I call encouragement.
You stayed, you saw and I conquered. 🙂
Oh, come on Lisa!
If I had Tom Kyte encouraging *me* to present, I don’t think I’d be too worried about some grumpy old Scottish DBA 😉 Trust me, I encourage others (and some of them had *better* turn up and say so!
But, yeah, you conquered!
😉
Cheers,
Doug
“What does OraQA achieve that the cooperative FAQ doesn’t already achieve, with more substance? “
My main issue with the co-operative FAQ is that, ultimately, it isn’t. Howard may have issues with the ‘blog’ format of Q&A, but I think the CoOperative FAQ, content-managed by email to a single moderator, simply isn’t practical.
To limit the burden of moderation, use of an HTML template is requested.
Ultimately it discourages participation.
The CoOperative FAQ says
“I hope to be able to update the set of questions and answers roughly once every two weeks.”
In reality, there’s been no update for four months.
I don’t want that to sound like a criticism of Jonathan Lewis. I’m sure he is a busy man. It is simply that the process is too unwieldy.
As an extreme example, take :
http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/faq/glogin.html
It is marked as applicable to Oracle versions no longer supported, and Niall’s note about glogin not being re-executed when changing connection isn’t valid for the 10g version.
With Q&A, I could add a quick comment to that effect in 30 seconds. As it is, it is really too much trouble.
Oh, come on Lisa!
If I had Tom Kyte encouraging *me* to present, I don’t think I’d be too worried about some grumpy old Scottish DBA 😉
Tom didn’t encourage me to present, more like forced me, along with a few others.
But that doesn’t detract from the fact that you were there.
Like Tom, Niall, David, Connor and Julian (and we won’t mention Mogens as he forgot) you were all there, when, considering it was a Newbie presentation, you didn’t need to be.
But it helped me.
So I thank you.
The Ora Q&A is meant mainly for Newbies. Seasoned professionals may pop on every now and then and add a corrective comment or learn something new. Most of the content should/will be lower level. Stuff to help someone starting out actually do something versus sifting through mounds of information trying to figure out what will do what they want.
Ideally, it’d be a place to direct people to learn some of the more basic things one can do in Oracle that’s slightly more readable than the oracle documentation 🙂
I’m not actually “upset” about this issue at all. It just happens to be my career, and I think I know a thing or two about how best to impart knowledge effectively.
This idea that ‘The Q&A site is intended for newbies’ just really gets up my nose, because it’s so damned insulting to newbies! You mean, they can’t be trusted to understand and be able to process “real” information? They have to be fed reductionist clap-trap, because that’s all they can cope with?
Nah. That’s just wrong.
There’s an assumption, too, that simplistic stuff helps people “do things”. That it might help then “do the wrong things” seems not to occur to Bob! This is the doctrine of “look busy” rather than “think about it carefully, and then do the right thing”.
As for the Co-operative FAQ “discouraging participation”… personally, I’m all in favour of discouraging participation. Since when was it OK for the ignorant and mistaken to participate? Whoever said building up a body of reliable knowledge about Oracle, instead of myths and half-truths, has to be a democratic undertaking?
If “encouraging participation” means we end up with one-line answers instead of three-page ones, I think the more discouragement the better! And yes, I being deliberately provocative to make my point there!
I wholly agree with Howard. Unchecked comments and Q&A will surely lead to wrong As, and will make lots of them either unreliable, or useless.
As for the Cooperative FAQ being outdated, anybody sent anything to Jonathan, and he did not update the list? I’m not sure. He’s updating the other parts of his sites, so he could do it for the FAQ.
Unchecked comments and Q&A will surely lead to wrong As, and will make lots of them either unreliable, or useless
“right” today might be “wrong” tomorrow.
“right” today might be “wrong” tomorrow.
It might be a good idea to mention a version, then, which is why (no doubt) Eddie’s Q&A stuff is absolutely chock-full of references to applicable versions.
Isn’t it?