'Joining in' wiki page draft

[Rick Stevens]

Adam Williamson wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-02-12 at 22:25 +0000, "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" wrote:
> 
>> I personally am I against any mention that if you have or require and x 
>> certificate
>> bla bla bla up your arse and think that it will result in more people be 
>> scared
>> or lead them to be more hesitate to participate in rawhide testing
>>
>> Should we start requiring x years on a computer course in programming
>> from y university's before you start participated in developing pure 
>> bullocks..
>>
>> On the other hand you might say this might prepare for what ever linux 
>> certificate that is out there
>> which testing in general does btw why should we only mention RH  
>> certificates
> 
> Well yeah, that was my initial thought, but I'm trying to get a
> compromise. :) Doesn't anyone else have any input? Anyone? It'd be nice
> to have more than three people's opinions on this.

I'll wade in.  Forgive me if some of what I say has been covered
previously as I've not been following this thread as closely as I
probably should have.

Requiring some form of certification for participation in the Wiki is,
in my opinion, specious.  My degrees are quite ancient ASCS and ASEE
degrees given to me in the middle 70's.  That right there probably makes
me unsuitable for inclusion in the Wiki based on the criteria mentioned.

Despite being hamstrung in such a manner, I've risen above them and have
been in the field for 35 years.  That's three and a half decades dealing
with real-world issues and running/programming/managing systems using
various Unices (Ultrix, BSD, DG/UX, SVR4, AIX, raw S7 on Vaxen, SunOS,
Solaris, Linux, you name it) as well as lots of proprietary stuff like
VAX/VMS, RT11, RSTS, TOPS, MVS, Novell, PICK, System/360/370, and others
I don't care to remember.  NONE of those have any form of certificate 
associated with them, so I'd be still be on the outside looking in.

If you're trying to ensure that the authors of the Wiki really and truly
know of which they speak, then perhaps a pop quiz that must be completed
within a day or so (to preclude googling the answers) tossed at them
every once in a while would be enough.  Peer review of their postings
could also be used to vet their suitability for continuing membership.

To be honest, in my experience most certifications simply prove that
someone can cram for a bloody test.  It's short-term memory and soon
after, the knowledge vaporizes--certainly it does once the nice, pretty
piece of paper with the seal on it arrives.

As we used to say at the Jet Propulsion Labs when I worked there:

	"Ok, so you're a PhD.  Just don't TOUCH anything!"

Ok, I'll now go slither back under my rock.
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer                      ricks at nerd.com -
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-   The light at the end of the tunnel is really an oncoming train.  -
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