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How do I create an account on sqlanywhere-forum?

Unlike many web sites, you don't use a username / password to connect to sqlanywhere-forum. The forum uses OpenID for authentication. In a nutshell, this means that you authenticate yourself to a third party, and then that third party securely asserts to sqlanywhere-forum that you are authenticated and tells us who you are. Your password is never given to sqlanywhere-forum.

To create an account, click the "Login" link at the top of the page, and then choose your authentication method. If you have a Google account (eg. gmail, YouTube, etc.) you can click the "Sign in with Google" button. Otherwise, you need to enter the URL assigned to you by your OpenID provider. In each of these cases, you are taken to another web site where you go through the authentication process. Once that is successfully completed, you are returned to the sqlanywhere-forum site, where you are prompted to choose a login name. This login name must be unique. Once you have chosen your login name, you are logged in and can begin using the forum.

You can add multiple authentication providers to your account, and use any one of them to log in. To add an additional authentication provider, click on your user name at the very top of the page. Then click "User tools" and then "authentication settings". Click the "Add new provider" button at the bottom, and then go through the same steps described above to authenticate to the new provider.

It is recommended that you have at least two authentication providers. This will allow you to log into the forum even if one of your providers is unavailable.

If you have an SCN account, you can click the "SAP ID service" button to log in, but you can't use that to create the account initially.

What kinds of questions can I ask here?

Any questions related to any of the SQL Anywhere products, including SQL Anywhere server, SQL Anywhere client libraries (embedded SQL, ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, OLEDB, PHP, perl, python, ruby), MobiLink, QAnywhere, SQL Remote, Relay Server, UltraLite, and UltraLiteJ. Please include the platform you are working on as well as the version of SQL Anywhere you are using, including the build number. Most tools will display the version number when they start up. If you are connected to a SQL Anywhere server, you can use select @@version to obtain the version number of the server.

Before you ask, please make sure to search for a similar question. You can search questions by their title or tags.

Can I ask questions about SQL Anywhere documentation?

If you have a question about the SQL Anywhere documentation, please go to DocCommentXchange and leave a comment on the appropriate page. If you have a question regarding a discrepancy between documented behavior and observed behavior, you should check DCX first; if someone else has seen the same problem, they may have left a comment on DCX. If that does not help, ask your question here.

What kinds of questions and answers should be avoided?

Please avoid asking questions that are not relevant to this community, or are too subjective or argumentative.

This is a question and answer site - it is not designed to be a discussion group. In particular, answers to a question are usually not ordered by date. If you are expecting your answer to appear below someone else's because you posted it later, that will not always be the case.

Some discussion is fine, and the forum supports threaded comments for that purpose, but very long conversations can get hard to read.

What is the purpose of tags?

The tags used on this forum help users find questions that are related or on a similar topic. When browsing the forum looking for an answer, it can be useful to quickly find and view other questions (and answers) on the same topic in order to discover the solution to a new problem or question.

Tags are also used by users to be able to follow any questions on a particular topic. Users do this by adding the tag to their 'interesting tags' list.

How should I tag my new question?

You should try to add two or more tags when asking a new question.

Some suggestions for tags are:

  • Add a tag that specifies the version that you are using: e.g. sa-16, sa-12, ... asa-9
  • Add a tag that specifies the operation or component(s) that you are using: e.g. Mobilink, remote-data-access, data-recovery
  • If the question is about the behaviour seen on the client application then consider adding a tag that indicates the client API that is being used if you believe that the client API is significant. E.g. odbc, esql, jdbc.
  • If the question is about the forum itself then add the meta-sqla tag.

Do not add tags that are obvious. For example, adding tags such as 'SQLAnywhere', 'Sybase' or 'SAP' provide no additional content to the forum. However, if another vendor's product is relevant to the question or the problem that you are trying to resolved then adding that vendor as a tag could be useful. Note that you will not be able to create a new tag unless you have a reputation of at least 800.

Here are some suggestions if you are creating a new tag:

  • Before adding the new tag check that there is not already a tag with the same meaning, a synonym. If there is then just use the synonym.
  • Use singular words instead of the plural form.
  • Try to avoid tags with multiple words, but if you must create a tag with multiple words then use dashes (-) to separate the words.
What are the Terms of Service for posting on sqlanywhere-forum?

The Terms of Service vary slightly depending on whether a posting (question, answer, or comment) was created on sqlanywhere-forum or imported from the old sqla.stackexchange.com site. The details are on the Terms of Service page.

How does the reputation system work?

When a question or answer is upvoted, the user who posted it will gain some points, which are called "reputation points". These points serve as a rough measure of the community trust to him/her. Various moderation tasks are gradually assigned to the users based on those points.

For example, if you ask an interesting question or give a helpful answer, your input may be upvoted. On the other hand if the answer is misleading, it may be downvoted. Each upvote will generate 15 points, each downvote will subtract 1 points. There is a limit of 300 points that can be accumulated per day. The table below lists the different ways your reputation can change:

Initial and minimum reputation 1
A question or answer that you wrote is upvoted +15
A question or answer that you wrote is downvoted -1
You downvote a question or answer 0
An answer you wrote is accepted (not your own question) +25
You accept an answer on your question (not your own answer) +5
How much reputation do I need to do things?

The table below explains the reputation requirements for each task.

General usage
Upvote0
Downvote15
Add comments0
Upvote comments0
Upload files100
Create tags800
Retag questions500
Edit wiki question/answer500
Edit any question/answer1000
Moderation
Flag a post (as spam, offensive, etc.)15
View offensive flags30
Close own questions200
Reopen own questions500
Mark a post a community wiki500
View raw upvote/downvote scores500
Delete comments2000
Promote a comment to an answer
Convert an answer to a comment500
Close any question2000
What are badges?

As users participate in the SQL Anywhere Forum, they will earn badges, which can be viewed by clicking on a user name. There are three kinds of badges: gold, silver, and bronze - the colour indicates how difficult a badge is to earn. A user's reputation score is displayed with the number of badges earned. Some badges, such as Editor, Organizer, or Scholar, are only awarded once, when the requirements are met. Others, such as Nice/Good/Great Question or Answer, may be awarded more than once — once per question or answer to which the criteria applies. For example, if you write two answers that each get upvoted 2 times, you will be awarded two "Nice Answer" badges.

What is gravatar?

Gravatar means globally recognized avatar - your unique avatar image associated with your email address. It's simply a picture that shows next to your posts on the websites that support gravatar protocol. By default your gravatar appears as a square filled with a snowflake-like figure. You can set your image at gravatar.com.

Why can other people can edit my questions/answers?

Questions and answers can be edited like wiki pages by experienced users of the forum. This allows things like correction of out-of-date answers as well as formatting and spelling corrections. This ability allows users to improve the overall quality of the answers on the forum, even for answers they didn't write.

What does "Community Wiki" mean?

If you mark a question or answer as Community Wiki, it means that you want to give others the ability to edit the question or its answers easily. This may be useful for questions whose answers may change over time. If a question is marked as Community Wiki, users with a reputation of at least 500 may edit the question or its answers, while editing a "normal" question requires a reputation of at least 1000.

When you mark a question or answer as Community Wiki, you do not earn any reputation points from upvotes on that question or answer.

How can I find out about scheduled or unscheduled outages?

This page will be updated whenever an outage occurs or is scheduled.

I have a question about SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) or SAP IQ. Can I ask it here?

SAP ASE is a completely separate database product, unrelated to SQL Anywhere. General questions about ASE should be asked on the appropriate SAP Community Forums, located here. If you are an SAP user that is using ASE as your backend database for your SAP applications then you should ask your question on the forum specific to using ASE with SAP.

SAP IQ is also a separate product, though much of IQ's execution engine is based on SQL Anywhere. If you have a question about IQ, you can ask it here, but depending on the nature of the question, we may or may not be able to answer it. If your question cannot be answered on SQL Anywhere Forum, there is an IQ-specific SAP Community Forum located here.

How secure is this site? Can I post sensitive information here?

Everything posted on sqlanywhere-forum is visible to everyone on the internet. Do not post passwords, encryption keys, install keys, or personal or business data. This is not a private channel for communicating with SAP.

How do I validate my email address?

In order to post questions, answers, or comments on sqlanywhere-forum, you must have a validated email address. Click on your user name at the very top of this page, which will bring up your user page. If your email address is not validated, you will see "(not validated)" next to it, and a link underneath saying "Send me a validation link". Make sure the address is correct and then click that link. When you receive the validation email, click on the link it contains (or enter the specified URL into your browser) and your address will be validated.

How can I remove my personal data, or remove my account entirely?

You can remove your personal information by editing your profile to remove all information other than your email address. Click on your login name at the very top of the page, and then click "User Tools / Edit profile". If you want to remove all of your personal information including your email address and your account, you can contact the administrator who can help you. Note, however, that once this is done, your account will no longer exist and you will no longer be able to log into the forum.

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