From: Jay Hennigan (jay@xxxxxxxx)
Date: Wed May 01 2002 - 21:22:47 GMT-3
On Wed, 1 May 2002, Peter Rosenthal wrote:
> I've been a lurker for a LONG time. I have no problem at all with Howard
> making money or even promoting his stuff on this list. However, there are
> two issues.
>
> 1) Howard is not even a CCIE and therefore is no one to tell me or anyone
> else how to prepare. If he hasn't taken it he doesn't know what is
> required. If he does know what is required that means one of his co-workers
> at Certification Zone told him very detailed info about the test. That
> would be my guess but I wouldn't know for sure. Even so, if he hasn't
> passed the lab he shouldn't be writing material. Would you go to med school
> and let someone that isn't a doctor try and teach you surgery? I sure as
> hell wouldn't.
There's a significant difference. I can't speak for Howard, but if I
were to go into the business of producing exam preparation materials
commercially, I would deliberately NOT sit for any of the exams, and
work from the vendor-provided blueprints and other knowledge.
The reason for this is to avoid any possibility of being accused of
violating the vendor's NDA. If you haven't taken the exam, then you
haven't signed and are not bound by the NDA.
Flaming someone who is a long-term contributor here for making a prudent
business decision to avoid the appearance of impropriety isn't going to
earn you any points.
> 2) A new list has been created for vendors. Why is Howard not being
> restricted to posting his spam on that list?
Maybe because his posts are useful study material and not spam?
> Well it's because of $$$. I
> used to think this list was intended to be vendor independent and fair for
> everyone. But, now I found out that they selectively filter posts from
> people that advocate their competitors.
Competitors? Paul provides this forum at no charge, independent from
vendors. If you have a problem with that, then go to one of the pay
> I don't like favoritism on lists
> such as this especially when people are buying that favoritism. If you
> don't think Groupstudy is getting paid by ipexpert, hello cumputers,
> getlabs, and certification zone then you should ask them. I'd be curious
> if they lie about it or are misleading in any way. If Howard wants to post
> this stuff on the vendor lab and they stop filtering their competitors I
> wouldn't complain a bit. I think this is a good place for people to
> advertise their products or services. But, you shouldn't have to pay GS to
> do so.
I don't think that GS is being paid by them. Perhaps they buy banner
ad space, but I've been here long before there was even a separate lab
list, even before the commercial scenario-vendors were around. I've not
seen what I would call censorship at any time. I've seen an instance of
an abusive forger booted from the list, and gentle (often too gentle)
nudges to post things in the appropriate forum, but never censorship.
The reason for the separate vendor list was to try to filter posts of
the form, "In the SooperDooperLabs scenario 43C, I can't understand the
reason for the third paragraph on page 12." This type of question is
meaningless to those of us who haven't purchased SooperDooperLabs scenario
43C. Contrast this to a question regarding configuring dial peers or a
BGP regexp which are vendor-independent. You might want to read the list
archives or lurk for a while before setting the flamethrower on "High".
This is much the same reasoning as the separate lab list, jobs list, and
swap list, to reduce each list to meaningful topics. Paul, maybe it's
time to come up with an "Off-topic gripes, bullshit and whining about
other people" list for these things. Dave Nuhl can moderate it.
> You should also realize that Howard was always in this for the money.
> Before his new company he still worked for CZ which sells low to mid level
> training materials. He profited then as he does now.
And he has been a regular contributor here for a very long time. Most
of the participants here make a living in the networking industry in
one form or another. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. Chill.
-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Administration - jay@west.net NetLojix Communications, Inc. - http://www.netlojix.com/ WestNet: Connecting you to the planet. 805 884-6323
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