I've both good and bad luck with MetaLink Forums and TARs. I remember back in 97-99 when our main Oracle DBs were on OpenVMS that Kirsten Dimmick from Oracle Support was always very helpful and insightful. And looking back on some of her advice and troubleshooting, I don't think it was just my greenness with Oracle that caused me to think that. Employees with talent like that shouldn't be relegated to repeatedly blogging "RTFM". I hope for their sake that folks like Kirsten have moved on to something a little more stimulating or challenging. Unfortunately for us customers, that sometimes means a drop in service. Oh we've been serviced alright... Rich -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Thomas Day Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 8:54 AM To: Oracle-L (E-mail) Subject: Re: Metalink forums - effects of the outsourcing Fortunately I haven't had to use Oracle support in about 6 years. That's one of the great things about this list [snip] -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l