11

How to clone a user in SQL Server 2008 R2?

I don't notice any votes to close it, and it has a helpful answer with +7 but the question is sitting at -4. I couldn't find any similar questions with a quick search and there are no comments explaining what might be wrong with the question. I've looked through the tour

I'm fairly new to this site though I've been on stackoverflow a while. I've gone through the tour and tips on asking questions but didn't notice any flags or things that would make this a bad question. Are there some "gotchas" or annoying types of questions that I should avoid asking on dba? Is it because this site seems more tailored to people who are already experts and the poster said they were a newbie to MS Sql Server? Could the question be made clearer with an edit to restate it and remove the parts that aren't really a question?

1
  • 2
    People downvoted but did not gave reason which IMHO should be given. Without reason it seems like you just dont care to help with reason it seems yes you want user to help but you first want him to try, and give as much information as possible so that answerer can provide good answer with minimum efforts
    – Shanky
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 7:03

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
18

It's hard to be sure why votes are cast because everyone is completely free to vote how they please (by design), but the general guideline is displayed when you hover over the downvote button:

This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful

I think in this case the question does not show any research effort - there is no sign the OP has 'tried' anything at all. Sometimes that doesn't trip the down-vote switch, and I think attitude is probably what was pushing folk over the line on this one, both this in the question:

P.S.: It would be great if the step or method is in GUI. I am still learning the commands

which can be read as "I don't want the best answer, I want the one that requires the most minimal effort from me". Even then the benefit of the doubt might have been given except for this:

  • Are there some "gotchas" or annoying types of questions that I should avoid asking on dba?

    No, but I think it's a good idea to respect the answers given - it often doesn't go down well when someone obviously doesn't want to listen to the expert advice they've asked for.

  • Is it because this site seems more tailored to people who are already experts and the poster said they were a newbie to MS Sql Server?

    Yes and no. This site is mainly about 'expert level questions' - or more specifically about questions that benefit from expertise in answers - rather than the basic 'first hit in Google' type. At heart this is a pretty useful question with a bit of problem attitude.

    If a reasonable question like this is posted and a clear desire to learn is evident, and the OP is not averse to the effort that goes with learning, it'll be well received.

  • Could the question be made clearer with an edit to restate it and remove the parts that aren't really a question?

    Yes, I think it would be upvoted - please fix it and then flag the comments that need cleaning up.

2
  • 2
    This reflects my thoughts very accurately. It's not like landing in a position where you are tasked with doing something in the area completely new to you should be foreign to many of us. But to display your reluctance to use a certain kind of advice so explicitly... That's discouraging and easy to cause someone to overlook the usefulness of the question over the frustration.
    – Andriy M
    Commented Feb 26, 2015 at 7:30
  • That's pretty much what I thought, thanks.
    – Jason Goemaat
    Commented Feb 26, 2015 at 7:47
8

At least for SQL Server related questions, constraining a response to be GUI only is a good way to get downvoted. The documentation for commands is well, documented. If I want to restore my database, I would type RESTORE somesuchnonsense and anyone who wants to go read the fine manual could understand what the options mean and what I've done. If I encounter an error, one of the first things I'm going to be asked is what have I done. If I tell you I clicked here, here and here, that doesn't tell me what command you've issued. Furthermore, did you know the resulting command that is built by the GUI is dependent upon the version of the GUI being used and not the target version of SQL Server?

Case in point, the creation of an SQL Agent Job on a 2008 machine that has an SSIS job step. If I used the 2008 version of the GUI to build a job, the default job step was fine. When I used the 2012 (RC) SSMS and created the "same" job, it would append /CALLERINFO SQLAGENT to my job step. That's innocuous right? Except that CALLERINFO was not a valid option for dtexec in 2008. To make matters worse, when I would use the 2008 SSMS interface to view the job definition, I wouldn't even see the CALLERINFO parameter there because it just ignored it. It was only when I scripted out the job to see the underlying commands I noticed the discrepancy. How many hours did I waste trying to hunt that down? I prefer not to think about it.

Think of it this way, there are some tasks where you don't really need to know what's going on. People at McDonalds push a button and down go the fries in hot oil. A timer goes off an out they come. Do you want to be the first person to go to the dentist where they push a button to fire up root-canal-o-matic? No, because maybe you really only needed a cleaning and they didn't notice which button they accidentally pushed.

2
  • Upvoted for the second paragraph. Thank you for the /CALLERINFO SQLAGENT example. Insanely relevant for my team.
    – Mark Iannucci
    Commented Mar 9, 2015 at 19:21
  • It seems to me you're answering the original down-voted question, and, indirectly, have said that the question was worth answering and should not have been downvoted!
    – Martin F
    Commented Apr 6, 2015 at 20:13

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .