top users

[John Bolene]

It seems that most of these questions are answered by a few people who appear to spend their days in these forums, and you have been very helpful.

Is this your job to answer these questions or how the heck do you have so much time to spend in here being so helpful?

How are any of the rest of us poor fools to get any points when most of the questions are already answered?

I appreciate all the help that is available here and I rarely have to ask a question because most of them have already been asked before and all I have to do is search.

Keep the good answers flowing.

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell · Accepted solution]

Hi John

The majority of the users on the forum are sysadmins who use the forum to help solve their problems and also where possible assist others.

We all over the years have expertise in different area and as UNIX is more of an adventure than an OS it is impossible to know it all.

I use the forum for three main reasons:-
1. To learn
2. To solve my problems
3. To assist where I can

I have it open on my desktop all day and when I have a few mins spare I use it.

It is now 20:50 Hrs here in the UK and I have just finished a new script and thought I would spend 15 mins on the Forum before going home.

Best wishes

:-)
Paula

[Rita C Workman]

Hi John,

Can't speak for the others, but I can say that once I got things scripted and automated...it freed up a little time. On quiet days, I enjoy this forum and another one I respond on (..both have helped me to learn..and continue learning..) and on busy days, I never even get logged in. I will say that when I have posted a question, I enjoy getting answers (even similar) from a number of sources. Everyone adds another piece to the solution. So if you see one answered, then add another point. Every bit helps. ... and I always try to give points to everyone.

Regards !!
/rcw

[paul courry]

These are dues John. We pay 'em because we owe 'em. I've been on HP equipment for 23 years now and people helped me out when I was a greenhorn, now it's payback time.

When do I find the time? Before work, lunch hour, after work, at night. Whenever I can squeeze a few minutes in. Some of these questions take some research and a phone call to answer. Some take a little experimentation on a crash and burn box after hours. Some just require dredging up old memories.

[Tim Malnati]

I think you will find that most participants fall into the category that Rita and Paul are describing in terms of their time. There are some internal people at HP that have been assigned to follow certain Forum areas but I doubt any do it full time. Most of these people will have the HP logo beside their name but it seems that there are a variety of other internal HP folks that do it on their own.

There is no one on the face of the earth that knows everything about unix, so everyone here has something to learn. Some of us are particularly heavy in a specific area and tend to expound more when a question of a particular type gets posted. It's sort of a battlefield type of thing. Been there, done that, and we are somewhat proud we survived the battle; but we don't necessarily want others to go into a similar battle without any armor. And there are other times when it becomes a challenge and we start picking our brains and every other available resource to determine what the answer should be. Speaking for myself only, I have some significant issues attempting to communicate with a crowd (failed public speaking several times). This medium allows people like me to communicate effectively without the fear that people are focusing on me. Maybe it will help the next time I take a public speaking course.

I know what you are saying regarding the speed that answers seem to get posted. Often it seems like I need to put in an ATM line to keep up, but suppose that would be of little use where my typing speed is timed in words per hour. You will notice with time that it's not always this way. On weekends and at night you will usually find less response.

[Shannon Petry]

Well, you can see by my measely 300 or so points that I too get frustrated by not being able to spend much time here.
Most of my time is lunch, 6-7AM, and nights. Supporting 30+ facilities, I have little time to stop work, and follow a forum.
However, when I do have time, I really try to get here and post. I enjoy teaching others my experience, and a couple times have had to turn to forums for problems I had not run into....


Anyway, one day, I hope to be able to spend an hour a day here :)

Regards,
Shannon

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi John,

I keep a browser window open on my desktop 24 hours a day and when I have a few minutes to play, I jump into the forums.

I've recently installed a new set of L servers, with Storage Area Network and EMC disk arrays. I wasn't really expecting it, but a few searches in the forum helped me to solve nearly all issues.

My client, who is actually paying for my time, encourages me to use this forum as much as I can because he has been really impressed by the average quality of answers.

Like Paul said, I've also been working as a Unix sysadmin for more than 20 years - I'm not a spring chicken anymore ;-) - and now is payback time. I've used quite a lot of different forums in the past but did not always have the time to participate actively.

Some companies I've been working for didn't provide internet access, some were using SUN or IBM equipment...
For now, it's kind of a dream: they have HP boxes, provide me with a dedicated DSL line (for me alone) and encourage me to use this forum. What a nice playground !!

It's saturday today and I'm in the office at the request of the DBA. They are upgrading Oracle and SAP from 32 to 64 bits and that supposes a few kernel parameter changes and reboots. This will allow me plenty of time to surf on the web.

All the best,

Dan