You have to love the Planet MySQL voting system

Within a few hours my post Installing Mediawiki on Oracle Enterprise Linux LAMP stack got 5 negative votes.

Wow, I’d be glad if these people could felt so passionately about all the other CRUD on Planet MySQL that has ZERO to do actually do with MySQL.

Using a LAMP product, and providing instructions for operation can’t be a negative voting offense. So it can only be the words “Oracle Enterprise Linux”.

For those negative people out there that care enough to physically mark blogs let me share some facts with you. RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the most widely used and support platform for production MySQL environments. CentOS and Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) provide via the freedom of Open Source, their own offerings of RHEL with various other features including support or specific additional features for other products. Oracle also provides and commits work to the Linux Kernel, so they are just as much an allies to open source as other companies.

So are you bagging the operating system or just the word Oracle. Oracle is hear to stay, in fact those attending the MySQL Sunday event at Oracle Open World may get a welcome wake up shock. And for reference these articles are being written for a published Oracle Magazine article which meets the comfort level of the reader and introduces MySQL in a positive way. Your actions show just how much you are unwilling to embrace the larger community.

Comments

  1. mikeh says

    I am one of the folks who gave that article a downvote. I did it because the article is not primarily about MySQL, but rather an install guide for software which is trivial to install. I often enjoy your articles on MySQL, but I thought this one was not worthy due to its lack of technical meat. The fact that mentioned Oracle Enterprise Linux played no part in my consideration.

  2. Mark Callaghan says

    The content is good but it just felt “branded” to me. Would the content be the same were the title “how to install on RHEL4″?

    How is OEL different than RHEL? Does it add value?

  3. says

    I would say s/You have to love the Planet MySQL voting system/You have to love voting systems/ :) Don’t take it too personally – nobody ever votes for something they feel mediocre about – just go to NewEgg.com to see.

    It would be nice if it were implemented as “thumbs up only”, like on Facebook.

    [Note: I didn’t vote you up or down. ]

  4. Tom Hanlon says

    Admit it…You voted yourself down, just so you could blog about it, some sort of guerilla marketing at work I suspect.


    Tom

  5. says

    Hi,
    I’m a regular reader of your posts. They are always helpful, no doubt. But of-course as said by mikeh, reasons for down-vote could be quite different; On Planet MySQL I’d like to see only MySQL or Related Stuffs! Depends on perception.
    I do not agree with Morgan; we must have a way to express and I wish even Facebook add “Dislike” button. As in this case we got to know why mikesh down voted this.

    PS: I liked the article and I have not voted it.

  6. Ian Wrigley says

    It was a trivial re-hash of a set of basic instructions with no value added whatsoever. Not at all surprised it was downvoted. Not everything’s a conspiracy; sometimes people just downvote to indicate a post that’s not worth reading.

  7. Gerry says

    I wish the ‘down/up voters’ would leave a comment on the original blog as well as feedback to the author. It helps tune the content.

    My $.02
    G

  8. says

    Gerry,

    There is a blog, which is its own entity, and there’s planet-MySQL, which is a MySQL-oriented view on that blog. Say someone were to vote down on a blog post which is about setting up an IPHone. The vote down would be because it’s not MySQL related.
    But that has nothing to do with the blog post itself, which is valid.
    So, in my opinion, Planet MySQL is a valid place in itself, and it’s good that voting on the Planet does not “propagate” (comments-wise or otherwise) to the blog posts themselves.

    My counter 2 cents :)

  9. ronald says

    In response to the many comments and now twice as many negative votes on my original article and this post as well.

    @mikeh Thanks for your response. The instructions relate to a LAMP product and MySQL is an instrumental component. It is important to document what may be better procedures then those provided by products for improved MySQL security for example. In my most recent post “Why GRANT ALL is bad” you will find more justification why installation steps are needed on and for the Planet MySQL community. See also my last statement.

    @mark This article is for the benefit of Oracle readers, and is both cross syndicated to an Oracle list and also referenced in an upcoming printed article for Oracle users considering MySQL. Sure I could have said RHEL4 or even CentOS, however I’m trying to convey the ease of use of MySQL to die hard Oracle people too.

    @Tom Your comments are as usual, well …. (thumbs down)

    @Shlomi Yes, and probably now I also have the worse voted one as well. Infamous. Is there a badge for that?

    @Gerry I agree, if you don’t like something, say something. The only reason for this post anyway was 5 negative votes in 2 hours, and no comments to indicate way. Indeed this meaningless post now has double digit comments and it’s not even about MySQL. What does that say?

    And for everybody, I will be continuing to write MySQL related posts that target Oracle Enterprise Linux in additon to my other posts. Somebody needs to, and there are plenty of Oracle people that appreciate the instructions for a LAMP product they have never installed in one concise place, cross referenced with other important installation and management information all about MySQL.

  10. ronald says

    And to the particular user that gave my new post (about valuable MySQL specific information) a thumbs down in like 60 seconds from syndication, well keep at it!

  11. says

    @Ronald,

    Please do keep up writing good posts. And, I’m certain you’re far from having the worse voted post. I’m pretty sure Monty or someone else from MPAB had this pleasure (as I’m following up on the planet posts; you’ve already read my comic strip on this). I’m sure they’re not discouraged.

  12. says

    I think that voting is fine — but anonymous voting is not. It breeds distrust and conspiracy theories. It generally wedges people apart instead of being neutral or positive. I never even look at the Planet MySQL votes.

  13. says

    Personally I think the Planet MySQL voting is a failure. At least in your case you get genuine votes from people who genuinly didn’t like a post. In my case (and a few friends) I get a standard -5 within 24 hours, regardless of what I write, because I’m associated with Monty or a MySQL competitor (there is no way to know the motive, just the pattern is clear). Since the voting system isn’t widely used and most posts never get +5 or -5 votes, this kind of constant down-voting of someone regardless of content actually is rather visible even when it’s just a tiny clique. Doesn’t really boost that community spirit, does it?

    Sometime it’s just funny though, some time ago I wrote a thing on MySQL Cluster and using external arbitrator that was related to my past work at MySQL, and got the same negative votes again, even if it had nothing to do with MariaDB :-)

    Actually, since some time ago there seems to be only -3 votes left, it seems 2 of these guys were laid off in the most recent Oracle round. (The timing matches, and it’s not only me who gets the attention of these guys.)

    It’s not a big deal, but seriously, would anyone really miss the voting system if it was gone?

    PS: To my credit I already asked you essentially this question earlier, without any voting happening back then. Perhaps if you hadn’t answered privately, more people would have known the explanation.