Ask SQLServerCentral is closing down on 11th December, for Reasons.
When I started out as a full-time DBA back in 2010, it was the first Q&A site I found that was active, friendly, and easy to use.
It differs from the main SQLServerCentral Q&A boards by not being broken down into questions relating to a particular version of SQL Server, and a particular aspect of that version. This makes it easier for someone to just ask a question without worrying about if their question is going to the right place. A great benefit to those new to the scene.
It’s been through various hosting platforms – I dimly recall that it was hosted for a while on one of the Stack environments, but, again, for Reasons, it was moved elsewhere.
I met some great people through AskSSC. The first time I went to SQLBits, for example, the first two people I met there were two of the stalwarts – Jonathan Allen, and Kev Riley. I later worked with Jonathan on the committee for SQL Southwest’s SQLSaturday events.
Somehow I found myself on the moderatorial team of AskSSC, and slowly crawled my way up the charts of users there – but still only in 4th place behind Jonathan, Kev, and, erm, Grant Fritchey. Hail the mighty ScaryDBA. (He’s not been on the site for over 4 years, tsk.)
I’ve stepped away from answering questions there a couple of years ago, manly because that’s now part of the day job – working at Coeo as a “database platform engineer” in the managed services side, supporting 60ish clients with some really tricky stuff. I’ve just not had the mental capacity to stick around on AskSSC much other than to occasionally sweep away some of the mountains of spam that accumulate.
The last few years have not been kind to the quieter Q&A boards, though – mountains of spam, the rampant growth of the StackExchanges of this world, and the improvement in accessibility to the suppliers themselves via their support forums have all contributed. And then there’s the suppliers of the Q&A board platforms themselves…
It’s a shame it’s going – it really was a friendly place that helped build the wider SQL community. But the world moves on. I’ll miss it – mainly for the people I met along the way.
The above ramble was brought to you by a lack of sleep and a lack of caffeine.
The Lone DBA 
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Oh dear. That’s left a bit of a hole in my CV. It’s a shame they haven’t left it there as a reference resource. I had a quick look at the forum home page but it hardly invites you to jump in and offer some help in the same way as the Ask site did. Oh well. Thanks for all the work you put in as a moderator, Thomas.
When I started as DBA in 2000, it was my first source for extra knowledge. Sad to hear it shutting down. Thanks for all the work that was done during all those years.