“Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That’s the sound of inevitability….”

Thats probably the most creative “I told you so” I’ve gotten regarding this.

Truth is, nearly everyone lurking in those groups has asked why I bothered to keep on posting if it kept on falling on deaf ears.

-Vlad

I don’t understand how your solution helps anyone, including you. I don’t deny that there is a fair amount of nonsense in the Yahoo groups. Surely I have contributed some myself. But one can generally tell by reading the first two sentences of a post whether the writer has anything worthwhile to say. And if you come across a worthless post, there is nothing compelling you to respond to it. If you no longer feel called to respond to the “Microsoft sucks,” “Dell sucks,” “Best Buy is going to screw my wife and kill my dog” threads, just let them pass, and give us the benefit of your wisdom on those topics that are worthy of your time.

I agree. You’re completely right.

And any rational person would have walked away from this a long time ago.

However, I promised to Susan that I would stick around and do my bit to offer any insight I can. However, as you can tell by the threads lately, there is just persistent ignorance of both the moderation rules and really respect for one another and… I dunno, its kind of like listening to someone just outright bs someone and give them the wrong information.. you try to say something and correct it, right? Well, at least decent people do.

I just took it too far for too long, its not a coincidence you only see the riffraff type of conversations by people that never bothered to look at the list archives, cycled over and over. And when the leaders and knowledgeable people leave, who is left to have a discussion with? People that can’t use google? Sounds like a conference I’m not going to

Come on RR, give me your best.

-Vlad

I greatly appreciate the comments you post to the Yahoo groups as those of David, Amy and the others.

If the group lost valuable folks like you guys, it would lose my following and I’m sure hundreds of others. It would survive though, but only with those folks your referring to in this post which would render the board entirely useless.

- Brian

And sometimes you just have to walk away from the crap and find greener pastures with folks who play well with others.
There are too many neighborhoods to play in to waste time with the negative naysayers and those would have no life except to tear down communities.
I walked away over a year ago from two crappy Yahoo groups and I am much happier. I found I wasn’t quite that desperate for conversation.
You kick a guy out of the Orlando group and then see fit to tolerate the same crappy Yahoo groups I and others gave up on. I don’t see the thought process here.

Orlando is my responsibility, so I feel like its founder I have to keep it going forward and at times that just doesn’t include the people that go against that goal or don’t participate in it for the genuine reasons. Until new leadership is established, I am responsible for Orlando and thats the hole I dug for myself.

On the other hand, Yahoo Groups is neither my baby nor my responsibility so I don’t feel bad walking away from it because there are other people in there and its neither started nor moderated nor organized by “The Vlad ™” so I don’t see the connection between the two, Scott.

-Vlad

Your post doesn’t mention names or specific incidents. It is so general, why do I get the feeling you are talking about me?

The therapy aspect of a group can be just as important as the technical and business knowledge.

Sometimes this job is very frustrating, and the Yahoo groups are a good way to address the frustration and get advice from our more experienced peers that have overcome the same issues.

From outside appearances your business seems to be doing well (if not great), but that is not true for many of us. After more than two years, I am still trying to get the right customers and the right processes in place.

The barrier to entry is very low for this job. So, when starting a new business this could be an obvious choice for a lot of people. Although the barrier to entry is low, from my observations, the drop out rate is extremely high. Building a stable and profitable business is a not nearly as easy as I thought it would be. But I not going to go down without a fight.

That is why I value the Yahoo groups.

I have gotton a lot of useful advice from people who have stable IT practices. People including Amy and Steve Luby, Karl P, Susan B, Amy B, David S, and too many others to mention here. Some may come across as brash (HT), but they have a way of getting their point accross with pointed, brief posts.

Also, I’ve learned a lot from you in these groups. And as a side-effect, that one reason I am one of your customers. When was looking for services that I knew your company ofered, you were the first person I thought of. You have kept me as a customer because your top notch customer service and dedication to quality.

So, I stick around and try to chime in when you think you have something to offer. It is not that hard to ignore the noise. Try the daily digests. They can be a big time saver.

Regards and good wishes!

-Allen St. Clair
http://www.concia.com

Every time I read one of these comments it really puzzles me why people try to identify themselves in my words. There are 40,000 a day here, I spend nearly 6 hours a day on the phone and personally go through 100s of messages and blog posts. So why you, or any other individual, would feel posts are directed at them is beyond me.

If it makes you feel any better, you are not the idiot I was talking about. Neither is Schrag. But you can quickly find him just by looking for that quote. And my blocking these groups from my work machine during “work” hours does not mean I am abandoning them completely, just that I am not seeing the value there.

Frankly, these groups degenerate due to the personal whining and moaning by the people who only have themselves to blame for their problems; Maybe there is a cause for sbs-whiners@yahoogroups.com for people to just post their war stories and complaints.

I’ve got a business to run and I dont want to be distracted by those silly threads, thus the block from my work PC and perhaps more over time as I try to run the business and eliminate distractions from my day to day work-life.

-Vlad

[...] week I wrote about a few steps that I took to limit my exposure to daily time wasters. I have dropped the Yahoo newsgroups completely now and took a few more steps to free up more time [...]

I’ve witnessed some of the “off-topic” and grumbling conversations that you mentioned. When one of those threads is going sideways, I start using my “del” key and look for fresh topics. There are alot that I don’t read anymore because of the participants involved (yes, “them, they know who they are”) and I can predict the outcome of the discussion.

What disturbs me, is that apparantly MS is not allowed to make mistakes, but as an IT professional, I make mistakes and when I do, I correct them. “Let he without sin cast the first stone”

Very little in life is perfect. Is it better to complain, or to accept the situation as it is, or find a solution that is tolerable, or complain to sommeone directly who has some influence? I like the “find a solution” answer the best, but that’s my personality and temperament. Other folks’ mileage may vary.

Anyway, Vlad, a hearty “thank you” for the contributions you have made during my short tenure on “the lists”, and I’ll miss your techinical input there.

I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!