Speaking as a member of the Board of Directors of PASS: Hey! Did you see our new, improved web site?!?!?!!? I don’t think there is much anyone can do about consolidation until the existing sites want to be consolidated or people start visiting fewer sites. I know that right now that’s not on our radar. We have plenty of other areas to invest in.

Speaking as me again: One thing that will make consolidation hard is people’s desire to be known and to belong. Being part of a smaller site where you “know” many of the regulars really adds to the social side of things. That’s much harder if there are fewer larger sites.

-Bill

Side note and clarification, I do like sql-server-performance, and use sites that are owned / sponsored by third party software companies.

All that being said, at some point as a community we really should be looking towards consolidation. I had actually hoped that PASS would head that up but that is not something that has happened up to now and it may not really fit with the charter. I don’t know. Bill, I’m sure that you would have a better feel for that.

Thanks again for the feedback and correction to both of you!

David

I agree with Bill that there are folks who aren’t just SQL Server experts on the SQL Server sites. For instance, when I post, it’s usually on SSC, mainly because I’m comfortable with the interface and it’s ingrained in my brain since a lot of my work has gone up there. There I have found other folks dealing with AD, with Citrix, with clustering, with .NET, etc. I’m more a lurker on SQLTeam.com but when I do go there (or SQL-Server-Performance.com), I notice the same thing. These sites tend to attract people who have a passion for that particular technology, but that doesn’t mean that’s all they do. My day-to-day job is Active Directory and server/perimeter security. However, I do love SQL Server, so when I have time, you’ll see me pop in there. And that means i can offer a perspective from that viewpoint.

As far as the expert title, you’re right, a lot of people lay claim to it, but whether or not they really deserve it is in doubt. That should really be for others to decide. I see Bill Graziano and Adam Machanic have posted on here and those are two guys I certainly consider experts. I don’t know anyone who will argue that they aren’t (except maybe Bill or Adam).

Matter of fact, though I focus on security, Adam edited one of my articles and pointed out a weakness in row-level security implementations within SQL Server that I didn’t know about (something Steve Kass wrote about initially, I think). And I’ve referred to Bill’s presentation on what he wished developers knew about SQL Server more times than I can count. They might be on Stack Overflow, but I know to look for them on SQLTeam.com and SQLBlog.com.