The downfall of forums…

 

I’ve had a few conversations recently about the state of numerous Oracle forums, including my own. It feels like most posters these days don’t even bother to open the manuals before asking a question. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked a question, that is answered by the first couple of paragraphs in the manual. It’s just lazy beyond words.

Now I’m not having a go at those individuals who struggle to understand the manuals. I realize the documentation is quite dry at times, often involves a lot of cross referencing and English is not everyones first language. Even so, sometimes it is quite apparent that no effort has been made to find the answers for themselves.

I suppose the general lack of effort out there means my skills are even more valuable, but it’s hardly a consolation.

I’m sure it wasn’t like this in the old days… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Author: Tim...

DBA, Developer, Author, Trainer.

6 thoughts on “The downfall of forums…”

  1. Instead of reading official documentation, some people blindly believe that the information that they got in some of the forums is absolute true and accurate.
    Forums are good place to get some ideas or clue about the answers you are trying to find…but, always double check it.

  2. “I’m sure it wasn’t like this in the old days”

    Yup. Used to take the manuals with me everywhere.
    Including the beach. Of course, this was at the time
    when manuals were actualy printed on paper and
    therefore, portable.

    Now they’re printed on cds. And only readable if you
    are permanently attached to a power point and lug a PC
    around with you…

    I’d pay pure gold for a convenient, portable, reliable
    and solid way of reading/listening to CDs/DVDs without
    the paraphernalia and fiddleness of a laptop.

    And if it was sand-proof, even better!

  3. “I’m sure it wasn’t like this in the old days”

    It was. The difference was there were no forums, so you’d deal with lazy people personally.

  4. Ah so that’s where you’re all hiding. I have been patiently waiting for an answer to ‘How do I install Oracle ?’ over in comp.databases.server.oracle for 4 years.

  5. Noons, get yourself an iPod! I have over 50 movies and 200 songs on my 80GB iPod. The new ones also support Notes, which can be plain text with basic HTML including links…so you may be able to store Oracle documentation on them for viewing too, not sure.

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