You know, sometimes you come across as an ass. It is hard for those of us who do not take up residence in Vladville to live up to your standards. Why offer help and advice to your village idiots and then condemn them in the same breath? Are those of us who lack the experience or do not belong to certain communities fall short of you respecting us. It is as if we do not hold “membership” in either the SBSC or whatever Exchange community is out there, that we are less of a person in the IT world. It would do you good sometimes to take your own advice and think about people before you suck all the confidence they had in their abilities just because they asked a question that was not up to your standards.

Do you want to know what it really is all about. It is about people saying to their colleagues, “Yeah, I know Vlad. We talk all the time.” People want to know you, and be around you. You are a celebrity of the IT community. You may have not asked to be one, but nevertheless are one. Just try to remember when you were in the position of not knowing everything. Think of some of the stupid things you may have said, or questions you may have asked. Do not make those who are less informed feel stupid all the time. You are a better person than that.

By the way, you never returned my correspondance (email or phone)concerning the resale of OWN services. Its been a while now.

Michael – Jacksonville, Florida

@Michael

As a LONG TIME friend of Vlad and someone who actually reads his posts in their entirety and agrees with 99% of his sentiments, I have to defend him a bit here.

If you would RTF blog post, you would clearly see that he’s saying people who don’t know shouldn’t open their mouths and give “well, I think maybe {pull BS answer out of ass here} will fix the problem” kind of advice. If you don’t know the answer to the person’s question, shut up and let someone who does know answer them so they’re not utterly confused by inaccurate information. I’m all about community and love to help where I can, but I know my boundaries and I keep my mouth shut unless I’m fairly certain I know the answer. Sometimes I’m wrong, but I seldom try to teach things I don’t fully understand.

Aside from that, I would like to state clearly that respect is something that is earned – not freely given. (This is not directed at you since I don’t know your abilities.) There are way too many dolts in the IT community that are lucky they can tie their shoes and breathe at the same time. We who are constantly asked for advice don’t mind helping those who help themselves and are committed to learning (and retaining that knowledge to pass on to others as well), however, we generally find it disheartening when someone claiming to be an IT consultant asks simple questions that my 9 year old daughter knows the answer to and can’t comprehend the answer. Seriously, how hard is back-scattter to understand? If you understand anything about the SMTP protocol, you should be able to get it in about 2 minutes – let alone 2 hours. There comes a point in time where a professional will understand that they are wasting valuable time and cut the strings, leaving the idiot to clamor after someone else.

Before you respond, yes, I know I’m an ass and I don’t care. BTW – it’s very unprofessional to bring up business dealings in a public forum like that. Maybe he just doesn’t want to do business with you – if he did before, he might be reconsidering now.

I agree with you and apologize to you and Vlad both. I respect and appreciate everything he and others have done to promote the SBSC, Exchange, and personal side projects that tremedously elevate the IT community. I knew when I posted this that I was going to receive a lot of negative response. My point was simple; or maybe not so please allow me to explain what I meant. I wear many hats; and one of those hats is being a technical instructor. I love helping people. I actively participate in various MS newsgroups because I enjoy helping others. I agree that there are times when people just do not know what they want. They have a problem, but do not know how to articulate what they need. I realize that it is not my responsibility, nor Vlads, nor yours to babysit everyone who has this problem. But a little courtesy and understanding go along way. No one knows it all, and i cannot speak for those claiming a certain title of IT consultant, and not understanding back-scatter. I am an IT consultant, and no nothing about Exchange. It is not my area of expertise. But I digress. To reiterate, I apologize if I offend you or Vlad. But Vlad is a big boy and knows what I said to hold water. It was not a personal stab at Vlad at all. I know that is hard to comprehend, but I do respect him and like him as a person. As far as bringing up business dealing with him in a public forum, Vlad also knows that he is busy. And he also knows that emails and phone conversations are not a means to an end. One thing I have learn from Vlad is that if you email and do not receive a response, then call them. And if you get their voice mail, then email them again. I know he reads his comments, and I know that probably jogged his memory. He is not one to ignore anyone, but I totally understand how busy he is. So as for it being unprofessional, that is a personal call — one that I was comfortable with because I had a good feeling that he would not take it personally.

You know what, I really don’t have the time for this. Earlier today I left the group. Here is what I’d send to it:

You know what, good riddance. If this place is going to stand by and encourage clueless people to spread incorrect “advice” I’d rather go on the other side with people who may not be that polite but at least know what they are talking about.

Mark,

Nothing personal. As I’ve explained in the email to you, this isn’t about the ego and me looking down on people, this is about the lack of respect for the generally accepted principles of IT and sticking to the facts….

There is none of that on sbs2k and whats really breaking the back is that its pretty much encouraged.

-Vlad

Thanks Vlad, for asking about the elephant in the room. I am constantly frustrated by the amount of garbage email which flows through SBS2k and SmallBizIT. My current peeve is the horendesly long thread on Not for Resale software. I appreciate your posts and replies as they are to the point and informative. I know you are busy, but have you considered a new group which you or some who thinks like you could moderate?

Nah, nothing like that. There are already plenty of moderated forums and discussion lists in smallbizserver.net and SMBTN to name a few so if you need SBS info its probably best to go there.

I thought of offering my time to moderate the sbs2k but I just don’t feel like being dragged into these pissing matches by the people that seem not to have a clue. I think lack of moderation in there has grown to the point that its the opinions that matter, not facts, and frankly “I just can’t be bohtered(tm)”

-Vlad

[...] earlier today, a certain mvp, in his trademark style, fired a shotgun blast right into the belly of the sbs yahoo newsgroups. [...]

I’ve left the same groups for exactly the same reasons. I do not care for the “opinion” of the unemployed consultant, I came for the answers from the experts.

IMNSHO Yahoo groups suffer from lack of reputation controls. Susan Bradley writes about us being in control but with Yahoo everyone is in control and full authority to blast everyone else. No wonder its as bad as it is.

mb.

With all due respect it is only a small number of people that are devaluing these newsgroups. I’ve lost count at the number of times people have dumped junk into those groups.

They are mismanaged plain and simple.

Any chance of starting a moderated-only group like the original bugtraq used to be?

[...] There have been a few comments made by respected members of the community regarding the current state of our international network. Vlad talks about how the waters are muddied with those who engage in conversations that they don’t contribute to which helps fuel the ‘noise’ that can be created through endlessly long conversational threads on forums. Chris continues on a similar thread and even David is wondering about the current state of our community…  [...]

Suzanne – your eloquence is amazing. If only Vlad and I could write like that (or care to take the time to), maybe we wouldn’t come across as such jerks.

I left as well.

I disagree with your deifinition of value, too. My SBS UG lead told me I should join Yahoo groups because people there were SBS experts. With very few exceptions I fould that not to be the case. Most answers and discussions were about the basics and the conversation was dominated by as you call it “opinions and conjectures”

Nobody there spoke with any authority. If I just wanted uninformed guesses I could get them from my techs.

I will ask this: You always say we need to join the community. Which community? What am I missing?

will

[...] « Have SBS Yahoo groups lost all value? | [...]

I had to register to post this:

A M E N VLAD ! ! !

Our beloved SBS community is falling apart thanks to the endless fights and people have suddenly lost the ability to learn and use Google. You are spot on with all your comments.

You’ve started your own share if I recall but I left long ago too. Not left per se, just switched to web only and haven’t looked back since.

I would like to see a moderated place to get SBS help but I will agree with you that the group is no longer the place for it. If you do start a moderated one please announce it here.

It’s sad. I remember about a year or two ago that place had some very impressive people. When they left so did any value of that community. I suppose the problems were always there its just that they were not as obvious because there were smart people in there too.

Ever notice how presidential debates don’t have 30 people involved? There is a reason for that.

/ms

[...] to volunteer to moderate?    Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | live it! Published Tuesday, December 19, 2006 7:22 AM by bradley Filed under:News [...]

sbs2k is moderated??? someone might need to excavate them from their grave because in addition to it being reduced to the dumb & dumber of sbs there are several members using that list as their personal blog.

i’m still there but i just scroll through the thread titles as i select all to be deleted on weekly basis.

[...] If you hang out in online communities long enough, you see certain behaviours happening again and again. Many of these behaviours have been documented over the last 40 years or so and are summarised nicely in the paper by Clay Shirkey of the same title. There is a lovely example going on right now in a group I participate in – the SBS List. Recently, there has been a discussion about whether the group needs moderation and how it has become too noisy and a lot of people who are posting have no idea what they are talking about and so on. People are even blogging about it. Well, group: pay attention. You are behaving exactly as predicted. Go read that paper and be enlightened. I’ve distilled a few of the interesting nuggets in the rest of this article to whet your appetite, but to really understand the issues, you need to read the paper. According to Mr. Shirkey, there are some common characteristics of online communities, for example: The likelihood that any unmoderated group will eventually get into a flame-war about whether or not to have a moderator approaches one as time increases. (paraphrasing) Groups tend to devolve from their noble purpose into a variety of ‘basic urges’ that subvert the original purpose of the group. Group structure is necessary to defend the group from itself. Group structure exists to keep a group on target, on track, on message, on charter, whatever. To keep a group focused on its own sophisticated goals and to keep a group from sliding into these basic patterns. Group structure defends the group from the action of its own members. Shirky says there are three basic things that you have to accept about online communities (and if you don’t accept them, they will just happen to you anyway): You cannot completely separate technical and social issues. Members are different than users. A pattern will arise in which there is some group of users that cares more than average about the integrity and success of the group as a whole. [The Core Group]. This group will arise and find a way to express itself, even if not explicitly built into the technological framework. The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations. This pulls against the libertarian view that’s quite common on the network, and it absolutely pulls against the one person/one vote notion. One person/one vote is a really bad idea if you want to get anything done. Finally, Shirkey goes on to explore design requirements for online communities. These are the things that are absolute requirements for large, long-lived online communities to work well (or at all). Things that should be taken for granted. I am really condensing these statements heavily so read the paper for more detail. Here we go: There must be an identity system (”handles”) that is somewhat persistent and has some cost associated with changing identities. Identity is the basic requirement for having a conversation and linking what is being said now to what was said in the past (”who said what, when”). You have to design a way for there to be members in good standing. Have to design some way in which good works get recognized. The minimal way is, posts appear with identity. You can do more sophisticated things like having formal karma or “member since.” You need barriers to participation. You have to have some cost to either join or participate, if not at the lowest level, then at higher levels. There needs to be some kind of segmentation of capabilities. It has to be hard to do at least some things on the system for some users, or the core group will not have the tools that they need to defend themselves. you have to find a way to spare the group from scale. Scale alone kills conversations, because conversations require dense two-way conversations. The fact that the amount of two-way connections you have to support goes up with the square of the users means that the density of conversation falls off very fast as the system scales even a little bit. You have to have some way to let users hang onto the less is more pattern, in order to keep associated with one another. Now, I have distilled out a few of the salient/controversial points but they will all make more sense if you go and read Mr. Shirkey’s paper. Anyone who participates in, or plans to run an online community should definitely read it, If for no other reason that that it provides a useful platform from which to have the discussion about how a group should be run! I leave it as an exercise for the reader to work out how well Yahoo groups fit Shirkey’s design criteria and what needs to happen in any one particular community.   Posted: 19 December 2006 23:24 by Tim Long Filed under: Opinion [...]

The discussion going on right now in the SBS List is a social and technological pattern that has been well documented and there is an excellent summary in Clay Shirkey’s paper, “A Group is its Own Worst Enemy” (http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html). Most Yahoo groups fall short of the basic requirements for a successful online community and this “spirited discussion” about what should and shouldn’t be allowed on the group is a perfect example of the result.

You say that there is a cost to moderation (and I agree) but to some extent, that is the cost of doing business. In the long run, the cost of no moderation may be greater. For example, remember the MSSmallBiz group? Remember how that was supposed to deal only with “business” issues and not be a technical support group? Go there now and count how many technical support issues there are. Unless a group has a structure, they will eventually subvert themselves and go in an unintended direction.

I recommend reading Shirkey’s paper.

As some on this blog it is news to me that sbs2k is moderated. I thought it was James’s personal blog and Susan’s PMS testing ground. I never cared much for the group because it sounded like a club and not an SBS technical board so I happily paid for smallbizserver.net

Professional content, MVPs all over and a controlled environment that doesn’t waste my time. It is a small price to pay as its easy to waste even one hour by replying to Yahoo groups.

If you don’t like it, fine. Goodbye. Either start something else or move to a better place like I did. I can’t figure out why you care and why we should care about it. If I had a penny for every board that was filled with clueless morons and a dead moderator,,,

I’d say this clearly mandates a moderated sbs list. Please start one.

/ms

[...] you’ve followed this blog for a while you know I’ve had my ups and downs with the Yahoo Groups system of woe is me but I won’t do anything about it discussions. For some that seemed [...]