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Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> RE: Newbies welcome, or not?
Agreed. You must try to help yourself first. If now, how else will you
learn.
And as many have already said .... if you are too busy, just don't answer. Someone else will.
I was not trying to generalize and say that about everyone .... just certain vocal ones. Mostly because I really like the information that comes from this list. There is a lot of intelligence here that is free for the taking. All you have to do is to sit back and read (just like the manuals ... only accurate and much easier to stomah).
-----Original Message-----
From: Mercadante, Thomas F [mailto:thomas.mercadante_at_labor.state.ny.us]
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 1:55 PM
To: 'oracle-l_at_freelists.org'
Subject: RE: Newbies welcome, or not?
Kevin,
Something that does seem to be lost among the folks who post questions here is this:
This forum is voluntary. This means that no one person *has to* answer a question. And I have not yet seen an vile flame throwing on this list - not like what used to be on the VAX/VMS list. There, you were *afraid* to ask a question before you thoroughly researched everything you could first.
What I've noticed here (and what Mladen has pointed out) is that people will ask questions without even touching the documentation. All of the Oracle documentation is available on line. And we have some people ask the most basic question.
I have come to the point of not answering these questions, but not being nasty in a response to them either. And everything seems to work out.
So your charactization is a bit off, I think. Some of the experts on this list are just too busy either making a living, writing a book or performing some other research which makes their free time hard to come by.
Tom Mercadante
Oracle Certified Professional
-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Lange [mailto:klange_at_ppoone.com]
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 2:42 PM
To: 'oracle-l_at_freelists.org'
Subject: RE: Newbies welcome, or not?
One thing I liked about this list in the past is that folks never used to turn any questions away. It did not mater whether or not the person was a Newbie or an Expert. Their question was answered in a courtious and respectful manner.
I kind of wonder where that list went to.
There are names on this list of people who's books and advice I use every day. You have my respect for your abilities in this field.
Unfortunately, some of you are fast losing that respect because of the way you treat people who you consider 'lesser' in knowledge than yourself.
Why don't we try to teach people to do things right instead of ripping them apart because of mistakes that we see as 'obvious'.
All the experts here were newbies at one time. Maybe its a good thing that not everyone laughed in your face at the idiotic things you did before you learned beter.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jared.Still_at_radisys.com [mailto:Jared.Still_at_radisys.com]
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 1:21 PM
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Newbies welcome, or not?
>
> ANYBODY who would type ANYTHING in as root WITHOUT knowing what it
> does EXACTALLY should not have root access, is not responsable
> enough to have root access and needs to WAKE UP and LEARN the "man"
command.
>
> good lord, people, what happened to personal responsibility and
> professionalism?
>
It would seem that many of us have forgotten that Scott Adams gets fodder
for Dilbert from real life.
As Mark Powell has pointed out, folks get thrown into the position of DBA and/or Unix admin without much prior experience, and they don't have much say in the matter, short of finding new employment. That is not always an option. They may not yet have a good concept of how unix works, and don't yet appreciate the power of root.
So, are we saying we should not answer newbie questions for folks that don't have a clue, and yet they are required to fill the position?
Even pointing someone to the correct section of the documentation can be extremely useful. I started with Oracle 7.0.12. The documentation was quite a bit smaller than now, but it wasn't always clear which doc I needed.
The docs are now 20k+ pages for all the Oracle online docs. The index and search capabilities are useful, but hardly infallible. Is it too much trouble for us to point someone in the right direction?
How about the less experienced listers? I often ignore simple questions, knowing that this gives an opportunity for junior folks to participate in the list, and help out those that have even less experience than they do.
So, what's the consensus?
Should be welcome folks with little experience, or make it clear that they should come back when they know what they're doing?
My vote is for trying to be helpful, even to those with annoyingly simple questions. If I don't care to answer, I leave it for someone else.
Jared
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