What gives?

Jack Parker asks... > [...] > > I asked the question to confirm a sneaking suspicion I had that net answership > has declined over the past whatever. Might I ask why? Have we gotten better > in terms of recognizing when a quesstion is so easy that everybody is going > to answer? Yes. I answered this same question a few months ago, along with 40 or 50 others. I usually don't address the same topic again unless I have some new insight to offer. The archives may provide answers (do they?) to "old" topics. > Have we become dulled to the amount of mail that comes across? Maybe, but more to the number of *topics* that the forum addresses. It used to be that we covered SQL, OnLine, SE and some O/S and Unix. Now there is also NewEra, FourGen, PowerBuilder, RAID, 3 or 4 versions of OnLine, big vs little unix platforms, and way more newbies. > Have we become scared to answer questions for fear that we might be wrong? Not at all. Graeme just likes to play "devil's advocate". > Have we all gone so far into the stratosphere with our topics that simple > everyday questions like this are meaningless? Maybe, but mostly this falls under question 1: they've already been answered. > Have we lost readership due to the number of job postings? I hope not. I *like* those job postings. Now that we got the mega-posters under control (thanks, Donna) the "offers" we get are good news to me. > Has Informix become such a little-used product that there aren't that many > of us left? They are growing, we are growing, business is booming. Today. > This is not the way I remember it and I don't like it at all. I realize > that I haven't been answering many questions lately - trying to restrict > myself to ones I know I know and not those where Jonathan is bound to have > a better answer. Would y'all care to discuss this? Should we move it to > IUG-talk? Let's discuss it. (I already am!) And no, it's not an IUG question at all (I'm not a member of that forum.) I think there are just more people asking more questions on more topics than ever before, and though the Q/A ratio has increased over the last few years I think it's still a good forum. I filter most of the messages now because they apply to subjects that my company doesn't use, and I can't answer those questions. Still, I miss the old days, but don't we all! > [...sig deleted...] __________________________________________________________________ | Clem Akins Standard Disclaimers Apply | |Reynolds Metals Co, Alloys Plant "Climb High, Cave Deep!" | | Muscle Shoals, Alabama USA cwakins@leia.alloys.rmc.com | |________________________________________________________________|