Re: Kill the Certification Thread

["Steven J. Owens" <puff -at- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Janet Valade writes:
> > Mostly I was responding to the comments that the thread should be killed
> > because it has been discussed before. "Search the Archives" seems to be an
> > easy way of cutting a discussion off and of avoiding what one does not
> > want to discuss.
>
>         Actually,  it's not a question of not wanting to discuss it. It is a
> question of recognizing a holy war when one sees one. From many past
> experiences, I have learned:

     For me, it's not even that.  It's a question of "been there, done
that."  I've been on techwr-l for something like six or seven years
(anybody remember when it was under 200 members?).  The certification
topic pops up repeatedly, and every single time we get what we just
got:

     Forty or fifty (or more) messages that are all way above-average
in length, below-average in concrete information, mostly consist of
opinions, and the opinions are all EXACTLY THE SAME as they were the
last seven or eight times the topic came up, regardless of who exactly
is posting them.

     I inevitably get suckered in and save the first dozen or so
postings in the thread, thinking to read them later when I've finished
the first skim through.  Then I realize what's going on and I go back
and delete all the posts, and then delete about a dozen posts a day
for the next couple of days until it's over.

     The whole topic can be boiled down to less than 100 lines of text
summarizing the pros and cons of the topic, and should probably be a
FAQ, or at the very least should be recognized by most of the list
members as a FAQ and referred to previous discussions.

     I am not, of course, telling people what they can and cannot post
about, but am I voicing my opinion about the usefulness of such
posting.  If my tone seems a bit excessive, well, chalk it up to
frustration at not getting the truly stimulating discussions I know
techwr-l is capable of, if only things like certification debates
didn't suck up so much time.

Steven J. Owens
puff -at- netcom -dot- com

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=