To whoever hacked into my Database

[Ned Batchelder]

On Monday, November 11, 2013 5:47:28 PM UTC-5, ru... at yahoo.com wrote:
> On 11/08/2013 11:08 AM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 4:11 AM,  <rurpy at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> On 11/08/2013 03:05 AM, Νίκος Αλεξόπουλος wrote:
> >>> I never ignore advices.
> >>> I read all answers as carefully as i can.
> >>> But nevertheless sometimes i feel things should have been better
> >>> implemented using my way.
> >>>
> >>> Not of course that i know better, but thats better suited for me in the
> >>> level iam.
> >>
> >> Most of the "advice" I've seen posted here has, as far
> >> as I can tell, not intended to be useful but to serve
> >> as a way to telling you are incompetent are in other ways
> >> insulting or useless.  I think you are quite right to
> >> ignore it (or tell the poster to get lost.)
> > 
> > Actually no; most of the advice has been genuine.
> 
> Actually yes; most of the advice has not been genuine.
> 

rurpy, I applaud your efforts to make this forum more civil.  I do not like the general tone of the responses to Nikos these days.  But you are being naive to present this as "the big bad meanies against the innocent OP."

Nikos has received a good deal of genuine advice.  He has also been genuinely difficult to help.

> If you want to be helpful try posting useful information
> without the insults, with an attempt to tune it to the 
> level of understanding the recipient and without the 
> offensive "do what I tell you" attitude.

Lots of people have provided useful information, tuned to the recipient.  And yet the threads continue to spiral out of control.  You must acknowledge that threads started by Nikos end up going badly far more often than average.  It can't simply be that everyone irrationally hates Nikos.

> He didn't reject it out of hand, he gave some reasons why he 
> rejected it.   But as is SOP here, you chose not to see or pay
> any attention to those reasons.

Actually, Nikos often has rejected advice out of hand.  "I want to do it in one line" isn't a good reason to reject advice.  "But I don't want to make another table" isn't a good criterion for database design.  "I like mine better than yours, it just doesn't work, can you help me fix it" isn't a good way to get help.

As I said, I applaud your efforts to improve the tone of this forum.  But you won't do it by ignoring part of the problem: Nikos is difficult to help.  He ignores advice; he doesn't seem to want to research the fundamentals of his problems; he refuses suggestions for capricious reasons; he reposts panicky questions, sometimes within minutes of each other.  All of these things make him difficult to help, and raise the ire of people who are otherwise generous with their time and experience.

I don't know how best to make things better overall.  I know that overlooking Nikos' faults won't do it.

--Ned.