Yeeeehaaaw - NG Cowboys are alive and well in 2005

Comments

# TrackBack said on January 1, 2005 11:21 AM:

# William said on January 1, 2005 2:26 PM:

Are there no moderator's in thee places? I hate useless content in posts on news groups. When people want help they need it asap generally not twenty pages of useless banter and then a link to something that may or may not be useful. man I hate those guys!

# William said on January 1, 2005 2:29 PM:

Actually these are the public NG's.

Andy - I've tried zinging you a couple of emails to hotmail - they aren't bouncing but they keep saying they are delayed - think there's a problem w/ Hotmail for the time being.

Anyyway, I'm working through some DB Pattern stuff right now but plan on heading over to a "Moderated" forum in a bit - probably only good for answering the .NET stuff but will do what I can.

Happy new year buddy!

# William said on January 1, 2005 3:17 PM:

I didn't reply to your previous "Cowboy" post, but I read it. All-in-all this has been going on since the beginning of the newsgroups. I can name about 10 folks that do this on a consistent basis, and don't mind doing so. In fact, I (as a MVP) rarely frequent the MS newsgroups because of folks like this.

But, guess what? The MS newsgroups are NOT community. If you spend your time in the MS newsgroups you're spending your MVP time in the minority of the community. Let the newsgroups go. It's old technology and the only folks that hang out there are old-timers and newbies. Those that have progressed beyond, spend their time in the other Internet forums.

If helping newbies and pacifying (and, in your case, bitching about) the old-timers is your bag -- keep on, keeping on. Otherwise, we'll see you in the real communities soon. If not -- I guess we'll see you here -- stuck in the blogging world.

# William said on January 1, 2005 3:27 PM:

Rod:

I understand your point and agree. As a matter of fact - I participate in quite a few venues - answering questions in NG's is just one way that I try to help people.

----My reason for posts like this are pretty simple but mainly I think publicity does some good - although I'm hardly implying that I am somehow changing the world. There's a lot of great stuff about IT and a lot of BS. The more people that publicly decry the BS - the more newbies and other less outgoing folks will feel that the jerks and loudmouths need to be pandered to.
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I have a pretty good friend for instance that had some real bad expereineces on the MS Newsgroups with a Cowboy and it left a bad taste in his mouth over it. I sympathize with him completely but I hate to see that . however the phenomenon is the same everyone - a few jerks can ruin it for the many.

I hate to hear stories from people who got bullied or dealt with total aholes in the newsgroups on general principle. The fact I'm a MVP makes it a little worse - but I hate that type of behavior - especially when people are looking for help.

# William said on January 1, 2005 3:27 PM:

Rod:

I understand your point and agree. As a matter of fact - I participate in quite a few venues - answering questions in NG's is just one way that I try to help people.

----My reason for posts like this are pretty simple but mainly I think publicity does some good - although I'm hardly implying that I am somehow changing the world. There's a lot of great stuff about IT and a lot of BS. The more people that publicly decry the BS - the more newbies and other less outgoing folks will feel that the jerks and loudmouths need to be pandered to.
-----------
I have a pretty good friend for instance that had some real bad expereineces on the MS Newsgroups with a Cowboy and it left a bad taste in his mouth over it. I sympathize with him completely but I hate to see that . however the phenomenon is the same everyone - a few jerks can ruin it for the many.

I hate to hear stories from people who got bullied or dealt with total aholes in the newsgroups on general principle. The fact I'm a MVP makes it a little worse - but I hate that type of behavior - especially when people are looking for help.

# William said on January 1, 2005 3:27 PM:

Rod:

I understand your point and agree. As a matter of fact - I participate in quite a few venues - answering questions in NG's is just one way that I try to help people.

----My reason for posts like this are pretty simple but mainly I think publicity does some good - although I'm hardly implying that I am somehow changing the world. There's a lot of great stuff about IT and a lot of BS. The more people that publicly decry the BS - the more newbies and other less outgoing folks will feel that the jerks and loudmouths need to be pandered to.
-----------
I have a pretty good friend for instance that had some real bad expereineces on the MS Newsgroups with a Cowboy and it left a bad taste in his mouth over it. I sympathize with him completely but I hate to see that . however the phenomenon is the same everyone - a few jerks can ruin it for the many.

I hate to hear stories from people who got bullied or dealt with total aholes in the newsgroups on general principle. The fact I'm a MVP makes it a little worse - but I hate that type of behavior - especially when people are looking for help.

# William said on January 1, 2005 3:30 PM:

Rod:

I understand your point and agree. As a matter of fact - I participate in quite a few venues - answering questions in NG's is just one way that I try to help people.

----My reason for posts like this are pretty simple but mainly I think publicity does some good - although I'm hardly implying that I am somehow changing the world. There's a lot of great stuff about IT and a lot of BS. The more people that publicly decry the BS - the more newbies and other less outgoing folks will feel that the jerks and loudmouths need to be pandered to.
-----------
I have a pretty good friend for instance that had some real bad expereineces on the MS Newsgroups with a Cowboy and it left a bad taste in his mouth over it. I sympathize with him completely but I hate to see that . however the phenomenon is the same everyone - a few jerks can ruin it for the many.

I hate to hear stories from people who got bullied or dealt with total aholes in the newsgroups on general principle. The fact I'm a MVP makes it a little worse - but I hate that type of behavior - especially when people are looking for help.

To the rest of your point though - I moderate four .NET forums and am active in more than I can count off the top of my head. This stuff happens there occassionally too - but usually it's moderated out. However one thing I get a wee bit too much of in those forums is students or really lazy people trying to get others to do tons of work for them. On Devbuzz once I got a post to the effect of "I need a Compact Framework enabled app that can transfer files toa web service and load them intoa SQL Server database. I don't know how to program so can you just give me the code to do this?" No venue is perfect.
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BTW, are you old enough to post in here? Can I see your card? ;-)

# William said on January 1, 2005 3:37 PM:

Rod- I tried to post back on your site, but even when sending an emial - the buttons don't cause post backs - although the required field validators are on. Not sure if you turned off comments or not ;-)

# William said on January 1, 2005 3:47 PM:

Bill - http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/sahilmalik/archive/2005/01/01/40385.aspx

# William said on January 1, 2005 3:49 PM:

Bill,
I can finally log in to hotmail so the server seems to be up but I have yet to get any mail so I'm guessing it's really backed up or still having issues. I'll give you a yell when I start getting mail in it again. So far over the hollidays most forums are seeming pretty dead. My guess is it will start geting back to normal around tuesday of next week.

# William said on January 2, 2005 4:50 AM:

Rod: Newsgroups are just nice. I prefer them to other "modern" technologies and in combination with Google they are the best thing, I think. Sure, the NNTP could get a little refreshment…
It could be just me, though.

# William said on January 2, 2005 6:34 AM:

rod: newsgroups are not for oldtimers and newbies, there are 290 messages on average a day in the C# newsgroup alone. Show me a forum on the www.asp.net forums which has 290 postings a day.

Also, usenet's interface is much nicer than dreaded forum interfaces, which are often slow and clunky. Furthermore, I don't want to register to a gazillion forums just to read 20 postings. The newsgroups are a centralized way of having a lot of people communicating together. Forums can't replace that.

# William said on January 3, 2005 1:27 PM:

Frans is right definately. Anyone can easily understand the concept of newsgroups and could probably subscribe to Microsoft.dotnet.languages.csharp much more easier than if they were to google for a good online forum site, sign up for it, and jump through the forum's many hoops.

Newsgroups don't have moderators if they're public which can both bad and good. A moderator could probably curb some of these cowboy responses but any thing other than that can be severely annoying. I belong to a mailing list with extremely strict moderation policies about linking to other websites, even if the information is perfect and worth linking rather than repeating. Some moderators of forums have a god complex believing that their poop don't stink and that they can do whatever whenever even if they themselves violate policy. If you can't police the police, then there's no point in having them.

Newsgroups still serve their purpose even if the protocol was developed a long time ago. It could use a refreshment like Miha said but that doesn't mean the concept of newsgroups is outdated or useless even today.

# William said on January 7, 2005 7:40 PM:

Jeremy - as far as Frans is always right - I have yet to see a deviation from that - the SOB is always right and most of the time attempts to be right and really funny simultaneouslu.