Home Uncategorized Invitation to Participate in T-SQL Tuesday #001: Date/Time Tricks

    Invitation to Participate in T-SQL Tuesday #001: Date/Time Tricks

    By
    Adam Machanic
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    1479
    44

    T-SQL Tuesday is the SQL Server blogosphere’s first recurring, revolving blog party. The idea is simple: Each month a blog will host the party, and about a week before the second Tuesday of the month a theme will be posted. Any blogger that wishes to participate is invited to write a post on the chosen topic. The event is called “T-SQL Tuesday”, but any post that is related to both SQL Server and the theme is fair game. So feel free to post about SSIS, SSRS, Java integration, or whatever other technologies you’re working with in conjunction with SQL Server. Even if your post includes no T-SQL we still want to see it.

    The posts must go live on the second Tuesday of the month, by (or before) 23:59 PST. Each post must link back to the host blog’s post, and the blogger should make sure that a trackback has been generated and successfully posted to the host blog; if not, a comment should be posted on the host blog with a link, so that the host blogger can find the post. The host blogger will then take all of the posts and within a day or two will compile a “roundup”–a brief summary with links–so that readers can find all of the relevant posts.

    Why do this? Several reasons: It’s fun, it’s going to generate a lot of interesting content, and it’s going to bring lots of bloggers into the fold and improve our overall community by creating a lot of links between blogs. Any blogger is invited to participate, whether the blog has been live for six days or six years. If you can write, you should join in the fun.

    Rules of engagement for hosts: Although anyone can join in the party, hosting has a slightly higher bar: Your blog must have been active in the last six months (“active” is defined as at least one post per month), and you must have participated in T-SQL Tuesday events on at least two prior occasions. Since that’s impossible until we’ve had two events, I’ll host the first two myself. After that it will move around to as many blogs as we can get involved–and I hope that a number of you out there decide to go for it. The host blogger is not required to write a participating post to be included in the roundup, but is free to do so if he or she chooses. Want to host? Contact me through my blog–I’ll keep a waiting list and control it centrally so that it doesn’t devolve into anarchy too quickly.

    So that’s that. If you bothered to read the title of this post you’re aware that the topic for this month is Date/Time Tricks. Write a blog post that talks about dates and times–this can be based around T-SQL programming, data modeling, ETL, reporting, or whatever else you’re using dates and times for (and who isn’t?). Make sure that your post goes live on Tuesday, December 8, between 00:00 and 23:59 PST. Make it clear in your post that it’s for T-SQL Tuesday, and make sure it links back here. Finally, make absolutely certain that a comment shows up here so that I can find the post.

    Questions? Comments? Post here.

    Enjoy! I’m looking forward to the start of a great blog tradition in the SQL Server community.

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    44 COMMENTS

    2. Sounds like a good idea. You can throw me into the "willing to host" list. Now to think of something interesting to post about dates.

    4. Adam,
      This is a very interesting idea, but why on Tuesday and why for only one day? I think quite a few people are going to be busy on any given weekday. For instance, if something important is going on, I would either forget to publish a blog post, or not have the time to do so…

    5. Alex: Why on Tuesday? Because that’s the day I chose. Why only one day? Because otherwise there’s nothing special or memorable about it. If you’re too busy to participate, then don’t–simple as that. By the way, you do know that you can schedule posts ahead of time, right?Jorge, Mike, and Jamie–can’t wait to see your posts!

    6. Adam,
      >>Write a blog post that talks about dates and times
      Just to get some clarification on the ground rules, one blogger could write only one post or as many he/she can write?
      Do you want to put some rules on the length of the content?

    9. Hi Adam,
      This is a great idea!
      So is this only for ‘fresh’ posts, or can we submit/update older (but relevant) posts to be included?
      Looking forward to the first installment.

    11. Wes: Self-competition 🙂
      Luke: The idea is that it would usually be for "fresh" content, yes. But if you want to repost something, it’s your blog–you can feel free to do that and I’ll link to it. But I will only link if the post goes live on the correct day. I will not link to an older post. So as I told someone on Twitter yesterday, what you might want to do is create a new post that links to some of your previous posts, and perhaps expands on them a bit, and submit that.
      Phil: Great, looking forward to your post!

    12. Adam,
      I think we need a Twitter hashtag for T-SQL Tuesday. Can I suggest:
      #tsql-tuesday
      ?
      -Jamie
      P.S. I’ve already used it 🙂

    13. Jamie,
      Great idea, but I’m pretty sure the hashtags don’t support hyphens. At least the Twitter clients I used don’t seem to make a link out of your tag. How about the same tag sans hyphen? #tsqltuesday ?

    14. Adam,
      You’re right, it doesn’t show up as a hashtag on twitter.com. [Strangely it does on other clients – the perils of "conventions" over specifications!!! :)]
      #tsqltuessday it is then! I’ve changed my tweet accordingly!
      -Jamie

    21. Adam,
      I love the idea and would like to host at some point.  Also, what about #TSQL2sDay for the hashtag?  Just a thought on making it a little different, also might help in reminding that it is the 2nd Tuesday.

    22. Jamie: Definitely a good idea for everyone to use the same tag on their blog in the subject of the post, e.g. "T-SQL Tuesday #001: How to Eliminate all Date/Time Columns From Your Database"
      SQLVariant: I like it! Let’s go with that. I’ll use it on Monday and Tuesday when I remind people to post and hopefully we can get it to stick.

    24. Great idea. Will post content as I can regarding themes. Would be happy to host as well.
      Q: if it’s based on trackbacks…we’re going to have to weed thru the spambots, no?

    25. David: Most of the SQL blogs don’t get hit too hard by SPAM. Are you actually seeing so much that it would be a sufficient effort to weed through it? I go through all of the comments on this entire site once a week and usually delete one or two SPAM posts, but it’s never very much.

    26. Hey Adam,
      Best point out "#TSQL2sDay" ASAP, some people have already started using a different hashtag (I won’t link to it – don’t want to draw attention to it)
      -Jamie

    33. There is no competition to be had. This is a community exercise and all are welcome to participate, unless they do something like take someone else’s material and republish it with their own name on it, or something similarly inappropriate.

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