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Make suggestions regarding the DSX site or the Forum

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gsherry1
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Post by gsherry1 »

Now that we have these Premium Content advertisements, maybe we can start a countdown of active datastage users from


Free Content Follows:


10000 to 0.
gmorey
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Re: Premium Content

Post by gmorey »

gsherry1 wrote:Now that we have these Premium Content advertisements, maybe we can start a countdown of active datastage users from


Free Content Follows:


10000 to 0.
This is free (and spam-free):

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/datastage_users/
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Sure, there are costs. I can appreciate costs. I appreciate the content on the site.

I guess advertisers alone don't cover those costs, do they?

There is one website I subscribe to, which has nothing to do with technology, for which I am happy to pay $40 per year. I know that 9 months down the road the content will still be useful and interesting to me.

I may not be here at this company in 3 months. I'll bet you the next company I work for will not have shelled out $80,000 for DataStage. So that's why I'm not happy about being asked to pay $50-100 per year for this website.

I would pay something less than that. There is a happy medium in there.

Yahoo uses ads to pay for their costs. Which makes this forum free:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/datastage_users/
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That would be great if my employer reimbursed me, however I'm a consultant and that just ain't gonna happen. They don't reimburse me for books.

Again, I'd gladly pay $50 for a good book on DataStage. I can always pass it on to someone else if I don't need it anymore. Can't do that with a website.
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ArndW wrote:Greg - let's assume that your daily rate is $400 and that a normal work day is 8 hours; that means that the annual fee of $50 represent an hour's work (taxes don't figure, since the forum costs are deductable). That means that you feel that membership here will not save you more than hour of worktime over the course of a year?
I'm a DataStage newbie. I doubt I could land a DataStage gig at this point - I just don't know enough.

I WISH my rate was that good. My rate is not even close.

I've found this forum to be helpful, for sure. So is sqlservercentral.com, but they're not asking for me to open my wallet to pay for content that was previously free.

What about people who are unemployed and want to learn DataStage? How fair is it to them?

How about this site creating a book? Sell me a book, dammit! I'll buy it!
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rwierdsm wrote:Well, needless to say, I did pay.

I can't think of a better resource anywhere (other than Greg Sherry and Peter Paton who sit close to me :D) for DataStage help than Dsxchange. You'd probably gladly pay $50 for a good book on DS and, ultimately, this site provides at least as much utility as a good book on the subject.

I still think you premium content guys should be writing a DS book, however..... I'd pay another $50 for that!
Again, I'll buy a good book on DataStage, but I'm not ready to commit to the site. DSXchange is forever changed. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/datastage_users/
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kcbland wrote:Nothing has changed except 5 prolific posters in-depth answers will be partially (and arbitrarily) behind a button. There's nothing to prevent other experts from answering.

What's your beef? If premium posters are so important to answering questions, how is a different site that does not feature the premium posters change the situation? I don't think you are aware of the illogic of your arguments. You're saying the "hiding" of our answers make this site worthless, so you go start a site without benefit of our answers. I'm confused as to what you are attempting to do here.
I've stated my beef plenty of times, I'm sure you're all sick of it now. The "premium posters" are welcome to join the other forum.

I think if I was a "premium poster", I might be a little bit upset that a site that was free had made a decision to sell my bits of code.

I'm attempting to offer an alternative over at dsusers.com.
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gateleys wrote:Dunno why gmorey is allowed to collect points and posts thru' his obstinate views. However, I do agree on some of the posts made by those members whose answer/question ratio is way above 1. It would be nice if DSXchange looked into arguments of these contributors. But beware of those members whose answers are always in the line of-
Why don't you search the forum? There are plenty of answers.
Most of us know that ..and do search the forum extensively.
I think he's onto something here.

Moderator, I confess. I committed a crime. I created a new forum. And I don't want to have to pay a yearly fee to this site.

Please punish me. Take away my points!
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Last edited by gmorey on Wed Feb 01, 2006 8:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
Greg Morey
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Post by kaps »

Well said...This is made like paysite as it reaches 10000+ members and they forgot that it reached that number because this was a free. Just to let them know that there are other sites available for datastage where we can see the replies by becoming memeber.
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Post by kcbland »

Do you have any concept of how much time the top 10 posters have spent answering questions? How about hosting the hardware and making the embellishments to the site source code? Who do you think pays the electricity bills?
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Post by kcbland »

You folks do realize there are costs associated with this site (hardware, software, electricity, etc)? Again, your questions and answers are NOT BLOCKED. Share all you want.
Kenneth Bland

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Post by kcbland »

This forum is still FREE. Just the 5 premium posters listed on the front page have the ability to restrict portions of their answers. How bad is that?
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gabrielac
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Post by gabrielac »

kcbland wrote:This forum is still FREE. Just the 5 premium posters listed on the front page have the ability to restrict portions of their answers. How bad is that?
I understand the concept behind this change, and I'm not against it. However, what I don't still get is: will all the posts from the 5 premium posters be restricted, or just the new posts from this date on? In other words, will the previous posts, that were a lot of help when searching, still be available to us newbies?

Thanks,
G.
lpadrta
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RE: Premium Content

Post by lpadrta »

The wonderful folks who support this web site have saved my bacon many times (even the old info gleaned in a search is very useful), provided that teensy bit of insight I needed to get me on the right track, and otherwise provided an extremely useful and practical source of all kinds of knowledge. And I love the fun tag lines.

Hey, if anyone is unhappy about the premium content fee, how about asking your employer to reimburse you for the membership fee to the best info source on DataStage?

Lynda
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Post by ArndW »

Greg - let's assume that your daily rate is $400 and that a normal work day is 8 hours; that means that the annual fee of $50 represent an hour's work (taxes don't figure, since the forum costs are deductable). That means that you feel that membership here will not save you more than hour of worktime over the course of a year?
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Post by kcbland »

If the 5 premium posters retired to Jamaica today, this site would still continue with the remaining folks picking up the slack.
Kenneth Bland

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roy
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Post by roy »

gmorey,
I think that if your unemployed (or employed but with no DS knowledge) and want to learn DataStage nothing is stopping you from taking a course.
This will also get you your book and hopefully some insight of a more experianced user (the one who gave the course).

Theese forums are not about teaching the product/s, they are about helping resolve issues using the product/s, for that community.

If your interested in learning the product, the prefered methond, in my humble opinion, would be to take a course/s, which is also something the sponsors of this site provide.

IHTH,
Roy R.
Time is money but when you don't have money time is all you can afford.

Search before posting:)

Join the DataStagers team effort at:
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org
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Post by aartlett »

I paid, I joined. If my $50 helps keep things running and gives me full access to all the top posters replies I'm WAY ahead.

I'm not a newbie, in fact I think I'm pretty good. Not in the top group but I get by. $50 is nothing compared to the time I've saved, the answers I've found and the knowledge I've been able to share. My current employers come to me first not the Enterprise architecht "guru's" for D/S questions and answers because they know that I'll get the answer if I don't know it. That's job continuing stuff for a consultant.

I never claim the knowledge is mine, they don't care, it's the answers that matter. If my money helps keeps this site up so our top 5 guru's can provide the answers, I'm not going to say no.

Congratulations to Kim Duke for cracking the 1/4 10K. Your utilities have been life savers.
Andrew

Think outside the Datastage you work in.

There is no True Way, but there are true ways.
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Post by kduke »

:lol: Thanks. I sure would like to know which one people use the most. I have changed almost all of them. When things slow down I will update my tips page.

Still think we should give extra utilities to premium members. Let me know what you think. I sure will give a discount on my products. Should update those soon too. Should install with x days free soon without the stupid auth codes. Need Dennis's approval first.
Mamu Kim
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Post by aartlett »

I use the doco tools very extensivly. At my current posting, we are using that for all our D/S doco and making sure that the jobs are filled in properly as part of QA. I've added an after market sed to add an annotations part to the HTML that references a file (and creates an empty one if necessary) at a level below the html code and changes the BMP to a jpg reference.

I also convert the BMP generated to a JPG due to size (Memo to self ... look at PNG).

Wouldn't minf a trial of the web interface to admin. Admin on dialup is sooooo slow.

I want to look at the row counter stuff as well. Time ... why doth thou fly so fast?
Andrew

Think outside the Datastage you work in.

There is no True Way, but there are true ways.
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Post by rleishman »

Guru advice costs, fair enough. I've received at least $50 assistance from the top5 in past.

Non-guru advice is free. Also fair enough. Sometimes its good, sometimes not so good. Often its too late.

But here's the problem: I occasionally connect to kill some time and answer some non-guru questions. But if I see that the last post is by a guru, I usually don't even read the post because 99 times out of 100 there is nothing further I can add. Lot's of people would do the same.

The thing is, the gurus (especially Ray - because we're both in the same time-zone - and Craig - because he doesn't sleep like humans do) check the site so much more frequently AND ANSWER EVERY NEW THREAD!

Upshot: whilst one-in-five (or more) questions could easily be answered for free, they wont be.

My prediction: there will be a lot more new posts starting with the words "NO PREMIUM POSTERS PLEASE".

As a question of etiquette, how do the Premium Posters feel about this? I don't think it is counter to the spirit of the site.
Ross Leishman
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