>I know I am going to get flamed by the negative people on this list. When I
>joined on this list it was for the study of certification. Whenever anyone
>asks a question related to certification, they get flamed.
Dan, I take your post in a positive sense. Nevertheless, there are
certain things I do regard as inappropriate, although I generally
don't join in the flame war, or occasionally try to deflect it with a
bit of humor. When it comes to flaming, I've rarely if ever done it
here. When I was writing one of my books and made a comment about
lawyers, the editor quibbled that it might be insulting to lawyers.
My response was that if it wasn't clear that it was insulting, I'd
make every effort to make the insult unambiguous.
Let me talk about _my personal_ reaction to certain kinds of questions.
1. "How many questions" and the like -- not really harmful, but I'm puzzled
what anyone can do with the information. Especially if the test format
is such that you can't go back (and that _is_ valuable information),
what can you do other than keep answering questions until you run out
of time?
2. Questions directly posted from some review source, with NO discussion of
what the poster thinks might be the right answer, or why, perhaps, all
the possible answers are incorrect. I'm glad to help people work out
the nuances of specific answers, but I expect to see that they've tried
first. Otherwise, I get a sense that they are just trying to memorize
without understanding.
There also may be copyright issues in directly posting questions.
As something of a personal note, which I suspect would be echoed by
most firms that write review materials, if there's a problem with one
of our questions, it's often more productive to send a query to customer
service than just posting the question to the list. Believe me, at
CertZone, such queries are taken seriously, and usually go to the actual
author of the question. I know that there have been times when I
received
such a query on one of my questions, looked at it, and realized I made
a typo or logic error. We promptly let people know about the
correction.
The question author is in the best position to know what he or she
meant.
That isn't to say that the review sites should be in the business of
explaining more detail about a question that is verified correct. On
a commercial basis, that would be tutoring. I know I will suggest, on
occasion, that the person asking direct the discussion to the list.
3. Closely related to the commercially questionable explanation are the
posts beginning "my client wants to..." My immediate reaction is that
I am usually paid to answer commercial questions. Of course, my
greatest
annoyance is when I get this in private mail from someone I don't know.
That isn't to say that a real-world problem can't be discussed on the
list as a way of gaining insight. You'll probably notice that I respond
to quite a few BGP routing policy situations. I do this for several
reasons. One, it fits in with my general IETF/NANOG/etc. teaching
role and role in avoiding Internet problems, and second, these often
wind up in case studies in my books.
4. Another problem area is apparent buggy behavior in a Cisco product,
to which my immediate reaction is "what does the TAC say?" If the
TAC has been consulted but didn't give a good answer, the problem
should be escalated in Cisco -- indeed, how to do so is part of the
CIT exam. I can understand asking for bug support for a personal lab,
but frankly, I would say that anyone without a massive internal support
infrastructure is crazy not to have at least basic SmartNet.
>There is nothing
>wrong with asking a question, there are no stupid questions.What is wrong
>with helping someone starting out? Nothing (People should check the archives
>first.)
And yes, checking the archives and CCO should be a given.
>When a company hires someone it is more for how they get along than
>there certs.
>If you don't like what someone says either delete the message or mind you
>own business.
>
>Dan Evensen CCNAWS CNS
Message Posted at:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=5258&t=5252
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