Rankings Revisited

I feel I need to clear up a few things about the rankings I slapped together last week. Let’s get one thing out of the way. The first rule about my rankings is that they are my rankings. Got it? They are subject to my whims and fancy, they mean nothing, and they are simply a way for me to keep my bloated Google Reader organized.

Thanks to a handful of polite emails I was able to get a few more names that need to be added into the groups. I have apologized to the bloggers that were omitted previously and I will make an update to the groupings soon. I also have understood that I cannot keep up with hundreds of blogs. So, I will look to limit the number of entries in the groups between eight and ten members. This way I can keep my focus on the bloggers already in my groups, making it easier for me to see who gets shuffled around. At the same time I can keep one eye open for someone else that is worthy to be added.

The names are listed alphabetically by surname, but only because I could not arrange them alphabetically by height without having personally met each blogger. The exception here would be the bloggers listed at the bottom (also by surname). Those will be the ones subject to relegation and I will try to denote them with a solid line. Bloggers above that line are all eligible for promotion, where applicable.

I will also be adding a fifth group, called Resource in honor of the ResourceDB. This group will be necessary because there are some bloggers currently in Master that are more than likely never going to fall out. At least not anytime soon. As such I will place them into the Resource group as my way of saying “these are the bloggers and members of the community you simply must follow above all others”. By moving them to the Resource group it will allow me the ability to shift others around more easily when necessary.

Another thing I need to explain is the whole “you’re on my radar” quote. Actually, anyone in my reader that is not in a group is on my radar. If you are in my tempdb group then you should consider it more as a promotion from a table variable to being allowed the use of physical disk. Hope that helps.

If none of this makes sense, and the less than polite emails continue, then I will put together a FAQ page to help you understand it all a little better. Then again, if you remember the first rule of my rankings, you would not need any such FAQ page.

http://www.truthsolutions.com/ K. Brian Kelley

Glad to see I’m not the only one with a bloated Google reader. The only RSS feeds I get to consistently each day are UserFriendly and Dilbert. Hmmm, what does that say?
http://www.straightpathsql.com/blog Mike Walsh

I think you should just promise to post the not so polite e-mails. You can redact the names

I am curious to see what kind of responses you would get from people who were actually bothered enough to write up an e-mail complaining.
http://www.SQLskills.com/blogs/paul Paul Randal

Wow – can’t believe you got snotty emails from folks. You’re doomed to always annoy someone who thinks they should be in one group or another – don’t you worry about it and let all of us worry about why we’re not necessarily in the group we want to be in (or might drop out of the group we’re in).
When I first started blogging, I used to watch my stats religiously to see how many readers I have – now I just focus on putting out the info and let the stats take care of themselves.
Advice to new bloggers – don’t get wrapped up in numbers/rankings – if you’re posting good stuff you’ll be discovered and become popular. It’s easy to be bitter and think “why am I spending time doing this if no-one’s watching”.

Quote from Field of Dreams 2: “If you build it, they will come”

Keep up the good blogging.
http://www.SQLskills.com/blogs/paul Paul Randal

ok – thought a bit more about this: http://www.sqlskills.com/BLOGS/PAUL/post/Are-we-too-obsessed-with-rankings.aspx
http://scarydba.wordpress.com/ GrantFritchey

Table variables use the physical disk too.

SQLBatman

ALL table variables use disk? or just some will use disk?

http://scarydba.wordpress.com/ GrantFritchey

Table variables and temporary tables will use the disk, or not, more or less equally. The only real difference between the two are the statistics created by the temporary tables.

So, to continue your metaphor, it’s that you’re granting them access to the drive, you’re granting them statistics so that they’re more useful for the optimizer.
http://scarydba.wordpress.com/ GrantFritchey

“…it’s that you’re granting…” should read “…it’s NOT that you’re granting…”

Bloody typos.

SQLBatman

either way you have clearly demonstrated that i need yet another metaphor and i should return my MVP award.

http://scarydba.wordpress.com/ GrantFritchey

Shipping on that eight pound hunk of glass must be expensive. I’d hang on to it if I were you.

Not to mention the fact that you earned it.

SQLBatman

earned it? well, it certainly was NOT because of my knowledge of table variables!

http://buckwoody.com Buck Woody

Hey there – you have nothing to apologize for. Your rankings are your rankings, tell the whiners to make their own.

The point of blogging is to share information – if I have something on my site that people find useful, that’s great. If I need to get an ego boost, I’ll get a dog.

Keep on truckin, batman.