Until recently, all my PHPUG emails were piped into a folder to keep them out of the way until I wanted to flick through them.
Basically I ended up with with every post to and from PHPUG back to 2007 or so. I remember a huge chunk of these emails were marked [OT]. This fact has been the topic for a few jokes as the OTs seem to generate more member contributions than PHP centric stuff (becuse PHP centric questions are usually sorted so rapidly, one would think we're paid to be here). If it wasn't for OT discussions, I doubt I would view the group as active and flexable as I do, and it's probably something I take for granted in hindsight. I didn't really think twice about starting that thread based on years of experience. And my role is a much different animal to what it was when I first started asking for help with sessions, escaping input and the utter bloody beauty of register_globals and the cool things it does with osCommerce. OT is all of a sudden important, as I know many of the people here possess technical skills well outside PHP itself. No doubt if OT weren't here, it would still be a solid place to get a quick answer to PHP related questions. But it wouldn't be anywhere near as active, expansive, and interesting. Paul Henry is a douche. A ----- Original Message ----- From: Harvey Kane To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 3:27 PM Subject: Re: [phpug] {OT} how bad is OT Yup I agree. I participated on the Irish PHP list for a while last year, and for a country with a very similar population to NZ there wasn't even remotely the same amount of activity or useful discussion on the PHP list as this one. Not even close. I think it would be fair to say I have saved thousands of dollars through the use of this list - being that I can get a quick answer to a problem that isn't so easily found in other places (eg Google). The off topic discussions are often of as much value to me personally as the on topic stuff. Harvey. On 6/10/2010 3:12 p.m., Jochen Daum wrote: I wanted to mention somethingin defense of Aaronin the other post. The reason that we have the amount of OT posts here that we have is that this listis comparatively helpful and large for our size of population. I think this is something we can be proud of rather than reject. Most of the OT posts are also database or (should be in web) software related, so I think OT could bein the eye of the beholder. There is no such resource for .net in this country and I know from participating in one of 2 (you wonder why) german lists that some people greet every question with "read the FAQ". I enjoy reading most OT posts, flamewars excluded. Kind Regards, Jochen [email protected] www.automatem.co.nz +64 9 630 3425 +64 21 567 853 skype: jochendaum twitter.com/automatem -- NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug To post, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] -- Harvey Kane Phone: - Auckland: +64 9 950 4133 - Wanaka: +64 3 746 8133 - Mobile: +64 21 811 951 Email: [email protected] If you need to contact me urgently, please read my email policy www.ragepank.com/email/ -- NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug To post, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] -- NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug To post, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected]
