Becoming a religion
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2015 16:20:43 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <pan.2015.03.20.16.21.32_at_gmail.com>
I thought about whether to post this or not and then decided to do that. I have received the following email from the moderator of the oracle-l:
Hi Mladen,
Yes, you guessed it, I'm getting complaints about you already.....
Is it really not possible for you to play nice?
Consider this a warning. I am really loathe to start banning people from the list, as I think it can be a slippery slope, but I'll gladly ban people if it stops valued members from leaving. If people leave, the value of the list diminishes.
It's not important who complained, I can guess that. It was NOT Tanel, that is not his style, unless I am very much mistaken. It was probably Kellyn, but that's not important. There are several important things besides the implication that I am not a "valued member". One of the implications is that the list, somehow, has a value and that the list administrator has a duty to protect the "value" from the bad guys like yours truly.
The whole things starts to remind me of a religion. There are priests, decorated with "Oracle ACE and certified Oracle Master" titles, and they decide what is halal and what is not. Any infidel will have a fatwa issued against him or her. I dared to contradict one of the priests. This is becoming eerily similar to scientology, with the word of L. Ellison in place of the word of L. Ron. Same hysteric reactions seen from the priests in Scientology can also be seen on the list. I am being threatened by a ban for not showing enough respect to one of the "valued members", a cast to which I apparently do not belong. I am one of the founding members, but apparently not one of the valued ones. This priesthood thing, of course, has a $$ sign written all over it, just like the other "priesthood" casts. It's an attempt to monopolize the consulting because such a monopoly could make money for the cast members.
Last, let's remember why I was invited back: I started invigorating LinkedIn forums, which threatened to take the customers over from the oracle-l. Now, it seems to be the time to leave oracle-l to the "valued members" and go with LinkedIn again. Apparently, LinkedIn doesn't have to "protect value" for the shareholders. I think I will leave the new church of Oraclelogy all by itself.
-- Mladen Gogala The Oracle Whisperer http://mgogala.byethost5.com Je suis CharlieReceived on Fri Mar 20 2015 - 17:20:43 CET