What kinds of questions can I ask here?
Most importantly - questions should be relevant to this community; that is, relevant for developers who care about performance.
Before you ask - please make sure to search for a similar question. You can search questions by their title or tags.
What kinds of questions should be avoided?
Please avoid asking questions that are not relevant to this community, too subjective and argumentative.
What should I avoid in my answers?
"Ask Use The Index, Luke" is a question and answer site - it is not a discussion group. Please avoid holding debates in your answers as they tend to dilute the essense of questions and answers. For the brief discussions please use commenting facility.
Who moderates this community?
The short answer is: you. This website is moderated by the users. Karma system allows users to earn rights to perform a variety of moderation tasks
How does the karma system work?
When a question or answer is upvoted, the user who posted them will gain some points, which are called "karma points". These points serve as a rough measure of the community trust to him/her. Various moderation tasks are gradually assigned to the users based on those points.
For example, if you ask an interesting question or give a helpful answer, your input will be upvoted. On the other hand if the answer is misleading - it will be downvoted. Each vote in favor will generate 15 points, each vote against will subtract 1 points. There is a limit of 200 points that can be accumulated per question or answer. The table below explains karma requirements for each type of moderation task.
- add comments -> 0
- delete comments -> 400
- close own questions -> 60
- reopen own questions -> 120
- retag questions -> 150
- edit any answer -> 400
- open any closed question -> 600
- delete any comment -> 400
What if I don't get an answer?
Well, this system is powered by the community. You must respect that other people spend their time to answer your questions—sometimes the community is not willing to spent time for your question.
The best thing you can do to avoid this, is to provide a well written question. Make sure you provide all required information, but explain your problem as short and precise as possible.
Here are some more guidelines:
- Format your post. Use the Markdown syntax that is described in the left column.
- Reduce all your code to the smallest possible fragment that still reproduces your problem.
- Make sure all your code can be copy&pasted as is. E.g., remove the "SQL>" prompt and similar noise.
And if this doesn't work?
Well, by a lucky coincidence, the operator of this service is consultant on that topic :)
With my commercial Instant Consulting service, I can help you directly at your problem.
What is gravatar?
Gravatar means globally recognized avatar - your unique avatar image associated with your email address. It's simply a picture that shows next to your posts on the websites that support gravatar protocol. By default gravar appears as a square filled with a snowflake-like figure. You can set your image at gravatar.com
To register, do I need to create new password?
No, you don't have to. You can login through any service that supports OpenID, e.g. Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc. Login now!
Why can other people edit my questions/answers?
Goal of this site is to become a valuable knowledge base for the community. Wuestions and answers can be edited like wiki pages by experienced users of this site and this improves the overall quality of the knowledge base content. If this approach is not for you, we respect your choice.
What is the title about?
Use The Index, Luke is the title of a online published guide to database performance.
Feel free to read the book or the related faq