A Call to All Community Minded SysAdmins: Join the ServerFault 10,000 Point Challenge (Updated)

(Update x 1: Added ten more participants!)

(Update x 2: Added one more participant!)

(Update x 3: And yet more!)

(Update x 4: Oh forget it, I’m not versioning any more of these updates…)

While chatting with some fellow SysAdmins via IM and Twitter, I stumbled upon a (seemingly) worthy 2011 professional goal. To ramp up interaction on ServerFault.com. As a self-employed IT person who leads a somewhat nomadic professional life, I can get rather disconnected from my SysAdmin colleagues. In my days of work, I tend to see systems that are of a rather low quality and then receive a shockingly small budget to try to bring the existing work up a notch or three. As a result, I can tend to get discouraged and lose objectivity when judging the quality of my own work. When an existing environment is a 3 and I leave it at a 6, I tend to focus on having left it in twice as good of a state as I found it rather than the fact that it’s still barely above average quality.

To counteract the mind-decay that can so easily set in, I rely on a few online communities to keep my standards high. I choose ServerFault.com as my primary source of inspiration. ServerFault (SF) is a member of the much larger StackExchange family of sites. After SF comes the SysAdmin Network, Daniel Petri’s forums, hob-knobbing with various SysAdmin groups on Flickr (including my own group “Ghetto IT“), keeping up with some choice SysAdmin’s on Twitter and reading some awesome blogs (see my blog list linked to on the top of this page). ServerFault never ceases to make me feel like a complete idiot. That’s a good thing.

While conversing with Cole Lavallee on New Year’s Eve, we decided to make a 10,000 point pact for 2011. In 2011, we were each going to strive to add 10,000 points to our Server Fault reputation. That challenge spread to a few others on Twitter. So far 7fellow Geeks have pledged to increase activity at ServerFault for 2011. Specifically, to increase their reputation by 10,000 points on New Years’ Eve of 2011. Those users are:

(Wesley “Nonapeptide” David’s Dec 31, 2010 Reputation: 3,581 - [graphic is inaccurate] - )

(Cole “vCole” Lavallee’s Dec 31, 2010 Reputation: 111)

(Jason “obfuscurity” Dixon’s Dec 31, 2010 Reputation: 519)

(Benjamin Krueger; @BlueBen on Twitter – Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 1 )

(Jonathan Angliss; @J_angliss on Twitter Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 414)

(Michael “voretaq7″ Graziano’s Dec 31, 2010 Reputation: 5,684)

(Michael Gurski; @magurski on Twitter Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 1)

Newly added participants:

(Robert Moir; Jan 1 2011 Reputation: ? [waiting a database dump to find precise number])

(Dan Bigbee; Jan 1 2011 Reputation: ? [waiting a database dump to find precise number])

(Brandon Burton; @solarce on Twitter; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 1)

(Phil “I ain’t no Hollenback girl!” Hollenback; @philiph on Twitter; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 131)

(Steve the Hedgehog; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 1)

(Tom O’Connor; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: ? [waiting a database dump to find precise number])

(Paul Friedrich; @lepole on Twitter; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 1116)

(Sean Johnson; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 1)

(Scott Pack; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 2994)

(Paul Graydon; @Twirrim on Twitter; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 250)

(Carl P; @line3 on Twitter; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 1)

(Devdas Bhagat; @f3ew on Twitter; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 201)

(Joe “Helvick” Mansfield; Dec 31 Reputation: 10K-ish [waiting a database dump to find precise number])

(Marc Cluet; @lynxman on Twitter; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 1)

(Jacob Jernigan; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 25)

(Pablo; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 0)

(Robert Novak, Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 0)

(Erik “Holocryptic” Gumbel, Dec 31 2010 Reputation: Awaiting further analysis)

(Philip “Chopper3″ Buckley-Mellor, Dec 31, 2010 reputation: 29,100)

There are a few ServerFault users who have chosen to choose a point target that is less than the original 10K challenge:

(The man (?) known only as Bob; @arclight on Twitter; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 381; Caveat: arclight is no longer a pure IT person. He has moved to a “hard engineering” position and as such has chosen a 2,500 point challenge for himself.

(Juan Manuel Rey; @jreypo on Twitter; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 1; Juan chose to do a 1,000 point challenge, but I conveniently misunderstood him and choose 5,000 as his goal. =)

We also have a slight twist to the participants. Not everyone has chosen ServerFault as their target. For example, Cat Esposito is an up and coming IT guru who is attempting to break into the world of 1s and 0s. She is leaning towards development but also has an eye towards operations. The next superstar DevOp? I think so. Cat has chosen Stack Overflow as her platform. Since she’s just breaking into all things development she chose 1,000 points as her goal. I’m raising the bar to 2,500 points without her permission. =)

(Cat Esposito, Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 28)

New participants in the Stack Overflow 10K challenge include:

(Droope; Dec 31 2010 Reputation: 41 )

Ten thousand points in one year comes out to about 40 points gained each workday for 52 weeks. That’s 200 points per week and a little over 800 points per month. Not too bad, right? But what’s the goal in all of this? To inflate our egos? Hopefully not. The goal should be to give back the knowledge that you’ve gained to those who need it. Also, we should attempt to be sharpened as professionals by choosing to be around those who know more than us. I guarantee that no matter what level of proficiency you’re at in your IT career, you will find someone who knows more than you at ServerFault.

Is there anyone else who wants to increase their community involvement? Toss your hat into the ring in the comments below and I’ll add your ServerFault badge to this post. Give back to the community and help grow the competence level of both your own self and those around you. Let’s make 2011 an awesome year for SysAdmins.

P.S. A note of congratulations to BlueBen who, on only his second day of participation, hit his daily reputation cap and earned the silver badge “Good Answer” with this beauty. Good answer indeed.