Re: Looks like HJR is thinking about tossing in the towel?

On Nov 3, 1:13 am, Steve Howard <stevedhow...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Nov 2, 5:31 am, hjr.pyth...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:



On Nov 2, 10:46 am, hpuxrac <johnbhur...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have been way too busy lately. I guess being busy beats the
alternative.

A recent blog posting notes that HJR is ( once again ) thinking about
shutting down. I guess that doesn't surprise me a lot as I have
noticed that he is sporadically posting here on cdos.

Try learning to read. The recent blog post asked the question, "Is
this site still worth keeping?"

I explained why I was asking the question: a lack of forum activity, a
lack of response to blog pieces. A general perceived sense that people
had moved on.

I got lots of answers, about 45 on the website itself, another 50 or
so via email. The consensus was, 'yes, the site is worth keeping, so
please keep it'

Which is why the even more recent blog post announced the fact that
the site would indeed be staying.

Several thoughts in no specific order. The enthusiasm and quality of
blogging about oracle has really spiraled down over the last 2
years ... maybe the honeymoon is over?

Are you talking about me specifically at this point, or Oracle-related
blogging generally?

Those people that do post the most are pretty much unchanged. The
usual suspects with the usual ulterior motives possibly. Yeah the
cherry sisters are still alive plus well ... you know.

I have been thrown off HJR's site's more than once. I guess if you
want to express opinions that don't agree with his viewpoint that's
what happens.

No, that's not what happens at all. You get thrown off the site for
being a dumb-ass trouble maker that doesn't know when to stop digging
no matter how deep the hole.

However much more than that HJR's site has gone through so many
versions and providers and reincarnations that it was probably very
hard for people to keep up. Vague good intentions of preserving older
content just never happened.

You really do need to get out and about more. The site hasn't changed
providers in 10 months. It hasn't changed format or content in over a
year. The old content is still there, exactly where it's always been,
and I went to especial efforts to convert all old wiki content into
new knowledge base content. There were never any "vague good
intentions of preserving older content", but concrete promises to do
just that which have been kept.

The forum content was indeed wiped (more than 12 months ago) because
conversion issues were just too tricky to deal with, plus I can tell
what people read on the site and posts from over 12 months ago isn't
it. It would have been a waste of effort to convert it, which is why I
announced, again very concretely and specifically, that that
particular bit of site content would NOT be converted.

C'est la vie toujours tout la meme. It would be good to see HJR back
here on cdos but I am not sure he has the appetite for it any longer.

If there's one thing I hate more than people pontificating about
Oracle non-factually, it's people pontificating about my state of mind
on even less evidence and with even less accuracy or regard for the
facts. When I don't have the appetite for it any longer, I'll be sure
to post a message to that effect just before I switch off the site.
Asking people whether the site is still useful doesn't even get close.

It's a tough choice putting in so many hours on something that doesn't
bring in any additional revenue.

No, it's not. The only tough choice I have ever had to make was
whether I was being useful to enough people.

Idle, ill-informed, obviously biased and factually erroneous
speculations such as yours presented here are one of the main reasons
you got booted off the site. With justification, I'd have said,
judging by this complete dollop of tripe.

This thread is really interesting to me, on a variety of fronts. This
isn't related to you, but it just reminded me I have been thinking
about this stuff, recently.

To me, Oracle blogs (or any blog) are exactly that...a web diary. I
log stuff all the time (although google still hasn't found me), as it
helps me to clarify my thoughts on how things in my day job work. I
don't feel a duty (specially since no one knows my blog exists, LOL!)
to provide a service for what is just a log of my thoughts/
understandings of technology stuff.

This thread is also interesting to me on the front of "kicking people
off". In the last six months, I have also killfiled a few *extremely*
prominent posters on this board, because I just couldn't stand how
they treated newbies. My life (at least in terms of reading this
group) has improved immeasurably since doing so.

As such, I have been thinking recently that a group run membership
policy (not here, but on a site such as yours) would be a good thing.
Accepted by "majority vote" democracy type of thing. Are there legal
issues with this? In other words, what if a "scorned poster" posts
things from a different IP, etc., which get the forum owner in legal
hot water? Would this idea itself drive away good contributors?

Drawbacks for sure, but worth considering?

It is an interesting thought. But I'll tell you: I have spent the past
two years trying to get people to *participate* in the site by having
a wiki, now a knowledge base, now the ability to blog... and the take-
up has always been abysmal. It was indeed one of my laments in the "is
this site useful" post: the forums are dominated by the same people
answering the same questions (badly) and (almost) no-one else ever
steps up to the plate to do new and better service. (And the quality
of the questions never seems to improve, either!) I did, of course,
get some excellent contributions: there are always exceptions to every
rule. But the generality of it is, most people don't write substantial
pieces for the site, no matter how often I give them the chance to do
so.

Of course, writing an article or knowledge base piece is not quite the
same thing as pressing a 'yes/no' button. It takes effort; the ability
to think in paragraphs, not words; it means sticking your head over
the parapet... and that's probably why most people don't seem to want
a bar of it. They want to be consumers, not providers.

I'm reluctant to hand votes out to people who don't participate more
actively, though: no representation without being taxed (i.e., made to
work for it) a little, I say! Contribute rather more than either "my
database is broken, how do I fix it?" or "RTFM!" and I think I would
have to evolve some form of 'democratic' element about the place:
because it's their content too, now. If and when I get more Knowledge
Base Authors and bloggers on the site, I think you will see some sort
of governance structure being put in place.

I don't think it's a legal issue, in other words. A 'scorned poster'
is certainly capable of getting back on and posting horrors... but
they'd be deleted within hours, I'd have thought, if they were that
bad, that obvious. No-one else is going to take a site to court for
not *preventing* the posting of outrages: the trouble only starts
when, having had them pointed out, the site owner refuses to do
anything about them. Even then, there's a 'threshold test': the stuff
has to be really, really bad to make it worth your while expending
time and effort and cash in the legal system seeking redress.

Interesting thoughts, though, no doubt about that.


.

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