That OTN forum post – bring out the gimp

The world and his wife have jumped on the bandwagon of commenting on and linking to the controversial yet amusing question-posing approach adopted by someone on the OTN SQL and PLSQL forum. Well, me too now.

I’m sure you’ve seen it. Here is a link again in case you’ve somehow missed it (where have you been?).

Here’s my 2p’s worth on it.

I find the person’s attitude no less shocking than that of many of the responders on certain other forums. In fact, probably even less so – not sure, I’m just starting to think about that.

I like the OTN forums. After several years break, I’ve only recently started posting the occasional comment, the odd answer even, to various forums and the OTN forums are currently my favourite. Probably because there’s more of an air of civility and respect on there. Which is probably because it’s an official Oracle forum and probably policed etc.

Whereas on the usenet groups, notably comp.databases.oracle.server, there are a minority – albeit a fast reacting minority – who leap on many posters to tear them apart with a one-two-three paraphrased combination of “RTFM” then a bit later “Didn’t I tell you to read the effing manual” and finished with a “Well, you’re an effing idiot then”. I don’t know, maybe you think that’s not fair because these aggressors spend a lot of time on the forums and do contribute positively some of the time. Maybe, I’m not completely sure myself. But there often seems to be at least one contributor there that to play the role of the gimp. Every successful team needs its “enforcer”, right?


"
Zed: Bring out the Gimp.
Maynard: But the Gimp's sleeping.
Zed: Well, I guess you're gonna have to go wake him up now, won't you?
" Pulp Fiction (1994).


The comments from the aggressive minority are that people who are posting and asking obvious questions without reading the manual are wasting the community’s time. To a degree their right, to a degree their wrong. The latter seem to be wasting their own time a great deal. They could continue to learn a great deal more yet about Oracle pastoral care from the master himself. Of course he has his limits, but when he is pushed to say something along the lines of RTM it doesn’t sound so much just like RTM and it never sounds like RTFM.