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Blog Overflow blog anyone? If you want to help with the DBA.SE blog, here's the signup list!

What is Blog Overflow?

Why, to put it very simply, it's the StackExchange Community Blogging Site. In other words: it's where members of the various communities come to blog for that community. Some sites have dedicated bloggers, others accept blog entries from nearly everyone in their community. We can do either. I envision having six to eight roving writers, each coming up with between two and three pieces a month.

Ok, So why should I write for dba.BlogOverflow?

I expect most of the posts to revolve around "further explanation of the subtleties of this answer" or "we get so many of these question/posts, let's make a canonical answer".

I know not everyone wants to blog, and I know not everyone has interesting topics to talk about. But I'll share a secret I've learned over the years: If you're passionate enough to write about it, you will impact someone else down the road. So if you think you want to write an article on it, then do so.

But I don't wanna commit to a blog, I may not write that often...

We don't need you to commit for any particular length of time, we just need it to not collapse under its own weight before its had a chance to take off. So we need some organization around who will and for roughly how long they feel comfortable doing so. And to do that, we need you to sign up.

So with that in mind: Here's the official dba.blogoverflow signup list.

EDIT AND ADDENDUM ETCETERA

If you want to contribute, make a new answer below. Locking the two previous answers of import since they've been edited heavily, and we want to catch new people. Probably just be better to comment on this Q directly.

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  • Are there minimum rep requirement? Peer review on the blog posts? Specifications as to what counts as on-topic for the blog and what doesn't?
    – Nick Chammas
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 16:29
  • 1
    I honestly have no clue. That's what we need to hash out here. I presume the system would have a way to stage blog posts, so we could peer-review them (say, two users each review before it can be posted). You raise excellent questions. What I would LOVE to see at this point is for you to post an answer below and lay out those details and then we can modify/comment/etc on those. Community spirit!
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 16:39
  • 2
    What a cop out. :P
    – Nick Chammas
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 16:57
  • haha, you're welcome. But really, I haven't seen the software except what you see if you follow the link above, so I have no clue what to expect, nor what can be done as far as staging is concerned. I also hadn't considered "on-topic/off-topic". I figure, database tie-in is sufficient. I'm sure we'll want to do new software releases (like denali info) and how-to's and the like.
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 17:04
  • Word. I'll propose some stuff then.
    – Nick Chammas
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 17:09
  • Status on this?
    – Nick Chammas
    Commented Jan 18, 2012 at 20:43
  • @NickChammas Jack was the last one I saw talking about it ... Let's ask him .
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Commented Jan 18, 2012 at 20:44
  • Can I contribute to this blog? I would like to expand an answer to [this question][1] [1]: dba.stackexchange.com/questions/22407/…
    – A-K
    Commented Aug 14, 2012 at 14:10
  • @AlexKuznetsov does whatever you want to expand on expand the scope of that question, or do you just want to write a better answer?
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Commented Aug 14, 2012 at 20:41
  • @jcolebrand I think I wanted a wider reply beyond the scope of the question, briefly explaining what happens (still an answer) and what we need to do to prevent such things (beyond the answer)
    – A-K
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 21:19
  • Then yes, we can do that. Find me in chat sometime and I'll walk you through it
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 23:07

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
13

Edit this post and put your name on here if you want to write for the blog. Also, kindly indicate how often you think you would blog (once a week, twice a month, once a month).

  • JColeBrand: Once a month
  • Mike Walsh: Once a month
  • Jack Douglas: Once a quarter
  • gbn (Shawn): Once a quarter or better
  • Mark Storey-Smith: Once a month
  • Shawn Melton: Once a quarter
  • ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells: Any time I think of an appropriate article that isn't a direct answer to a question
  • ypercube: Once a quarter
  • AaronBertrand: Once a month (or as time allows - sometimes more, sometimes less)
  • JNK (Jason): Once a month
  • Cade Roux: Once a quarter
  • Zane: Once a quarter
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I think this would be a good idea for a couple of reasons, and would provide a means to make the SE network into a really top-notch reference library.

  • The first reason is that many subjects could benefit from access to a backgrounder on one or more related topics. In many cases the OP obviously needs this background. For example, on of my higher voted answers on Stackoverflow discusses the birthday paradox at length. This references the wikipedia article on the topic quite extensively, but more specific (particularly platform related) topics may not have such a useful reference site.

    Having a facility to maintain reference material will substantially help with questions from users who really need a backgrounder in some relevant material. This is quite a common situation on SE sites. I kind of see this as a mid-point between answering and closing the question. Also, this reference material can be subjected to the same peer review mechanism as answers, so users can be encouraged to write it by the incentive of reputation from upvotes.

  • The second reason is that tag wikis are specific to tags. In many cases tag wiki items could also benefit from fan-out material, or suitable reference material is not appropriate for the tag wiki format.

Adding a blogging or wiki site would actually do something that wikipedia doesn't - the voting system provides a peer review ranking mechanism and an entry barrier (i.e. you ned x rep to participate) that will keep out spam and downvote crap without fostering edit wars.

IMHO, a peer-reviewed blogging or wiki site would turn the SE network into an absolutely killer reference library.

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  • have a look here for examples of other sites on the network
    – Jack Douglas
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 9:30
  • My only concern about creating a reference library is that many people will be tempted to just grab content from elsewhere. Unless there is a tight reign on who can contribute, I think it may encourage attribution issues.
    – Aaron Bertrand Staff
    Commented May 2, 2012 at 17:32
  • @AaronBertrand - In my ideal world the reference library would have an upvote/downvote mechanism and a means to flag - much like SO posts. This would police the quality of the posts and go a long way to pick up plagarism.
    – ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells
    Commented May 2, 2012 at 19:09
  • I have brought up giving the long form (blog/articles) the SO treatment (voting, comments, q&a) before on meta and there is a certain amount of push back against this.
    – Cade Roux
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 17:32
  • @CadeRoux - any idea why?
    – ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 17:42
  • @ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Fear, NIH, lack of core SE focus, whatever, I'm not sure: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/52292/… and even recently: meta.stackexchange.com/a/132199/18255 I still think the answer to a lot of "questions" about primary keys or clustered indexes or dynamic SQL are simply links to definitive articles about that, and a "come back when you have understood all that" Even the "blogs" here use disqus, so they aren't really part of SE.
    – Cade Roux
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 20:05
  • 1
    @ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells I like the way SQL Server Central has articles. I don't like the way it links to forums for discussion/elaboration. I understand a desire for answers to not simply be links to the definitive articles elsewhere. I think that if SE wants to have definitive answers it cannot ignore where the definitive answer merits a moderate length article. Note this correlates strongly with the duplicate questions issue.
    – Cade Roux
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 20:07
  • @AaronBertrand Attribution IS very important (which is why I have some problem with community wiki's lack of clear ownership). But if Stack Overflow is becoming the definitive place for Q&A and articles have a role to play, we'll need to encourage people to cross-post their articles or write new ones.
    – Cade Roux
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 20:22
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Edit this post as you feel is appropriate.

Blog Post Requirements

  1. Peer review: Post must be reviewed and approved by at least 2 other dba.se editors.

  2. Rep/badge requirements (?):

    1. 750 rep and at least two linked SE accounts
    2. Nice Answer or Nice Question badges (both bronze, both easy to get)

  3. On topic:

    1. Anything on topic for the main site that lends itself to a more in-depth treatment than would fit the Q&A format
    2. software releases of note (eg Denali circa summer 2011)
    3. discussion of database software as tools (how to in SSMS vs how to in TOAD or somesuch)
    4. 'topical' issues such as 'eventual consistency', virtualisation, enterprise SSD, licensing changes, vendor independence (ha ha), SAN latency etc
    5. interesting or commonly misunderstood topics eg null, reorganisation, mutating tables
5
  • I'd actually like to see a vote mechanism on blog entries, and maybe an indexing facility. Getting rep for writing decent articles might be quite the draw card to get people using it.
    – ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 9:36
  • 1
    @ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells - Vote and comment here.
    – Nick Chammas
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 14:56
  • Personally I think that a bar of 750 is pretty low, at least for those who answer. That is purely subjective, though, obviously.
    – Aaron Bertrand Staff
    Commented May 2, 2012 at 17:30
  • @Aaron - Propose an alternative with justification.
    – Nick Chammas
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 16:50
  • @Nick I don't have a better specific answer, which is why I added my disclaimer.
    – Aaron Bertrand Staff
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 16:51

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