It started with a tip submitted by Don Burleson, a respected and oft-published Oracle technical expert and a member of SearchOracle.com’s Ask the Experts team. Don wrote about undocumented features in Oracle that permit a user to manipulate memory to achieve significant performance gains. This technique could save time and money for users who can’t afford new servers or who don’t have the time to optimize their databases in other ways.

But there’s a catch. If applied inappropriately, ths technique can corrupt a database and cause data to be damaged or lost. Don was very up front about that and the editors on our SearchOracle.com site posted a prominent disclaimer at the front of the tip.

Some people thought that wasn’t enough. Tom Kyte, another respected Oracle expert, took issue with Don’s suggestions on his blog. He further suggested, disclaimer or not, it was reckless and dangerous for Don and for SearchOracle.com to post advice that could potentially corrupt data. Responses to the postings on Tom’s blog largely agreed with his position.

Other experts we polled were split down the middle, some thinking the tip was a valuable service to the Oracle community, others saying we were tossing a time bomb into a crowd. What’s the right thing to do?

In the end, the editors decided to keep the tip on the site while somewhat strengthening the language of the disclaimer. I agreed with this decision. Although there are no cut-and-dried answers on what is right in a situation like this, these are the factors I would consider:

• Is the information correct? No question of that in this case. No one disputed the accuracy of the tip
• Is the information useful? If it isn’t useful don’t publish it. I don’t think anyone argued that this advice wasn’t useful to some people. The debate was whether the potential harm outweighed the potential value.
• Is the source credible? There’s no question that both Don and Tom know what they’re talking about.
• Does the potential for misuse outweigh the value of appropriate use? The decision largely hinges on this question. In my opinion, disclaimers should significantly mitigate any potential damage.

On most points, then, the decision to publish the information was obvious. The language of the disclaimer was the only major issue in my mind and I believe the wording that the editors used conveyed the risk appropriately. Basically, anyone who was motivated and interested enough to employ this advice would read he disclaimer and be aware of the risks.

This is not the same as, for example, publishing an Oracle security exploit. In that case, there is little value to the user and great potential for damage. Nor do I believe should media organizations every post advice from anonymous sources unless the content is vetted thoroughly for accuracy. But when respected experts put forth advice that is useful to even a minority of the community they serve – even if there’s risk – it’s the responsibility of independent media to seriously consider publishing it. What happened last week was a debate but not a disservice.