The Heap™ – Consultancy ©®

2:26 AM

@PaulWhite - in this question, I mentioned CITEXT as a possibility -didn;t have time to answer in deteail . @a_horse_with_no_name mentioned the possibility of using a CAST to CITEXT which I thought was very clever. Both comments have been deleted. I am wondering why? They were valid contributions to the question/thread IMHO and are mentioned in @SalomonRutzky's answer.

A: How can comments disappear?

2:41 AM

@Vérace You're not new here, so I'm surprised at your question. Answers go in answers and comments are (primarily) for suggesting improvements to a post. Even if your comments weren't a misuse (which they were) they are obsolete because their only merits now appear in an answer. If you want your contributions to stick around, put them in a question or answer. This is a question and answer site, not a discussion forum. Some meta:

How can comments disappear? From the main Stack Exchange FAQ section How do comments work?: Comments are temporary "Post-It" notes left on a question or answer. You should not expect them to be around forever: Once a clarification has been made, an edit added to the post to include new i...

Q: Commenting on questions you don't intend to answer

I will often take a look at a question, realize that it's not one I'm likely to be able to answer - but still have something useful to offer in comments: a guess at a possible answer (especially ones that depend on info not provided as yet), tied to a clarifying question; a suggestion as to how...

Q: Is the comment-only answer acceptable?

Today I ran across this question, which I think is a pretty good example of a situation where a full answer may not be warranted. It was a bit messy in the original edit, but there was a correct (if incredibly trivial) answer available to respond with. So... Is the comment-only answer ever const...

discussion comments faq-proposed

Q: Why is there no option to flag Answers posted as Comments?

Often I see Answers posted as Comments - sometimes I will add a comment asking the user to add an answer themselves, but this is usually ignored. Posting Answers as Comments clearly impacts the site as a usable resource, as it reduces the search-ability of any particular search performed by a us...

discussion

Of course, if you feel some nuance has been lost, you are free to (1) write your own answer to that question; (2) suggest an edit to an existing answer to improve it; or (3) leave a comment on an answer suggesting that improvement (this option makes some work for other people).

(4) If you want to have a nice chat about citext with your fellow database professionals, create a chat room and send some invites.

3:07 AM

@PaulWhite - I"ve actually provided an answer - more of a suggestion/alternative-possibility really. The CITEXT comment was meant to give the OP a lead - as I said, I didn't have time to provide a detailed answer.

@Vérace Yes I saw. See the meta above for reasons why not having time to provide a detailed answer isn't a good reason for leaving a partial answer in a comment.

1 hour later…

4:27 AM

@PaulWhite - I didn't think that a one word comment (with embedded link) was worthy of an answer, but it could have helped the OP find something of interest for themselves - even the (dearly departed :-) ) Aaron Betrand in his comment here said that

"I will admit to being guilty of offering potentially useful information in comments when I don't have the time or confidence to build out a proper answer at that moment." - and that's the way it was for me at the time.

Comments of that nature are not "chat room" material - they are contributions that fall short of qualifiying as full answers, but worthy of consideration nonetheless. @a_horse_with_no_name's idea of CASTing to CITEXT was particularly interesting. I will try and keep such contributions to a minimum in future!

@PaulWhite Or would you prefer that such contributions to be put here with an @user_name so that the OP can pick them up if they wish? I'd be happy to do that!

4:51 AM

@Vérace That wasn't the question you asked. You asked why the comment was deleted. I have answered that and provided a lot of meta to read on the subject. I don't think such comments are ultimately as helpful as people think when leaving them.

Personally I'd rather people didn't bother leaving them in the first place but I accept the world isn't a perfect place

It's not possible to ping someone here who has never visited the room. That's not really what this room is for anyway

OK - I'll keep such comments to a minimum in future! :-)

Appreciate your efforts

I know it can be difficult to resist

2 hours later…

6:26 AM

Morning all - Dia dhaoibh go léir!

Tom V

Morning

John aka hot2use

6:46 AM

Morning

McNets

7:41 AM

Morning

Andriy M

Morning

ypercubeᵀᴹ

8:01 AM

morning

3 hours later…

ypercubeᵀᴹ

10:40 AM

just noticed that the election report https://www.opavote.com/results/4861580614303744/0
has a **Recount Ballots** button!

John aka hot2use

11:39 AM

@ypercubeᵀᴹ I pressed it and according to the new recount I am the winner.

To be taken with a grain of salt

McNets

@Johnakahot2use I'll take it to the court right now!

Q: Create materialized view with NOT NULL column? (dblink to external table)

12:08 PM

Morning

@Johnakahot2use nice one!

Andriy M

Funny, when I pressed the recount button, it showed me I was the winner. Though I did have to introduce a different policy of counting mail-in ballots.

5 hours later…

User1973

5:00 PM

Here's a question I'm working on over on Stack Overflow, if anyone's interested.

Cheers.

I've created a materialized view that syncs data from an external system (on a 5 second schedule; via a dblink). The primary system that has the MV is Oracle 18c. The external system with the source data/dblink is Oracle 19c create materialized view log on my_external_sys.workorder with rowid;...

oracle constraints materialized-views dblink notnull

McNets

For those who like football, Maradona has passed away

5:25 PM

twitter.com/boxtoboxfootbal/status/893792023005757441

3 hours later…

John aka hot2use

8:30 PM

@McNets The Hand of God

9:09 PM

I thought using your hands was illegal in football.

twitter.com/i/events/1331680705030496257

9:53 PM

@MaxVernon Obviously, you're not one those "who like football"

@mustaccio it was sarcasm

I'm a Southampton Football Club fan even though I hardly ever follow football.

@mustaccio I considered calling it soccer in that comment, but thought that would be over the top lol

Go Saints! (That's the Saints, right?)

"sarcasm: the use of irony to mock or convey contempt". Who/what did you mock and/or convey contempt towards, given that the "The Hand of God" comment is already sarcastic?

SEAGL, please

Weird connection - Peter Shilton (the keeper) was playing for Southampton during that World Cup

@CadeRoux sure is!

apparently they're in third place in the Premier league right now, maybe taking 2nd.

@mustaccio God.

10:09 PM

Please don't call me that.

10:45 PM

hah

1 hour later…

ypercubeᵀᴹ

11:52 PM

nytimes.com/2020/11/24/nyregion/…

amazing

the sheer effort and planning to conceal a gathering of 15k people. In Brooklyn!

> “All notices about upcoming celebrations were passed along through word of mouth, with no notices in writing, no posters on the synagogue walls, no invitations sent through the mail, nor even a report in any publication, including this very newspaper,” it wrote.