23

Perhaps this is but my first impression of DBA, but it's surely a pleasant one.

I recently asked a fairly basic question about Postgres's indexing abilities. I was greeted with AMAZINGLY cordial and thoughtful answers, that not only addressed my question, but did so without making me feel like a gibbering idiot. Further, the respondents didn't hate-comment each others' answers, and even the less-than-helpful response was very professional.

How has dba.stackexchange cultivated such a professional, welcoming environment?

3
  • 5
    It certainly helped that your question was interesting, well formatted and clear, which puts it above the majority of first-time posts. But the social climate on dba is more cooperative than on the bigger sites even for less useful questions - which may contribute to better questions in turn... Aug 12, 2015 at 14:21
  • 1
    A well researched question which is clear in all aspects would mostly get good response because the person responding has clear thoughts about your problem and intent. So thanks for posting clear questions
    – Shanky
    Aug 14, 2015 at 12:49
  • Not my experience at all. I was trying to understand a complex issue (which was never explained to my satisfaction) and was told " There's no reason to ask these types of questions here". I'm active on SO in DBA related questions and just had no interest in joining this community after that. In fact, if I could move my question back to SO I would. dba.stackexchange.com/questions/3307/…
    – Hogan
    Aug 25, 2015 at 18:20

1 Answer 1

23

As a lower-volume site compared to, say, Stack Overflow, we're able to manage behavior much more reliably, and we just don't get a lot of the nonsense that is inevitable with higher volume. We're also constrained to people who work with databases, rather than all people who touch computers, and that tends to weed out at least a little bit of the vitriol.

I do fear for the changes this site may experience when it hits critical mass, but I'm still hopeful we do a better job at it and rise above.

I'm a moderator here, but these were my opinions long before I became one (and long before I stopped posting answers on Stack Overflow altogether). As a sarcastic smartass I certainly have contributed to some of the negativity over the years.

7
  • 4
    Probably helps as well that most questions on dba are limited to a single DBMS, which allows for easier filtration of questions for power users. Which in turn lowers their signal to noise ratio and helps keep them interested.
    – Reaces
    Aug 12, 2015 at 7:51
  • I was avoiding referencing SO outright ;) Aug 12, 2015 at 13:53
  • Well it is the obvious reference point. :-)
    – Aaron Bertrand Staff
    Aug 12, 2015 at 13:53
  • 2
    In my opinion, I think even StackOverflow has different communities - the Flex/Actionscript community is (much) more cordial, helpful and polite than the Android community, the Zend community is more abrasive than the laravel community, and so on.
    – SQLiteNoob
    Aug 13, 2015 at 18:58
  • 3
    @SQLiteNoob That is true. It is also true that it only takes one or two abrasive people to make an entire community seem so.
    – Aaron Bertrand Staff
    Aug 13, 2015 at 19:19
  • 1
    I mostly have experience with SQL Server communities, but I think that the wider DBA community is just very good. The people who moderate and contribute to forums like this one are professionals who are passionate about what they do and they want to spread both their knowledge and enthusiasm. I have been impressed and humbled by this for a long time. It is a great example of what the Internet SHOULD be.
    – tommyfly
    Aug 17, 2015 at 10:33
  • I would say that, without offending no one, I'm not saying we are old, that the general seniority of the DBA's site adds up to having a more professional answer and general behavior. IMHO other sites, precisely due to the high volume of participants you have all kind of persons, as for experience I mean. So you have all kind of questions/answers, ranging to really awesome to plain rude/unuseful on some extreme cases.
    – Yaroslav
    Aug 25, 2015 at 16:19

You must log in to answer this question.

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