On Tue, 3 Sep 2002, Smitty wrote:
> A rather lengthy essay on a simple topic. The sections on "courtesty never
> hurts, and sometimes helps" and Dealing with Rudeness" are ironically
> interesting in that the co-author, Rick Moen, while on the silicon valley lug
> list had the bad habit of flaming newbies for their allegedly "dumb"
> questions. I have never seen anyone so rude and discourteous on a lug list
> as he. I would say that he is not a credible authority on the subject.
> > howto...sorta. It should be a HOWTO, anyway. It was written by Eric S
> > Raymond, and Rick Moen. It's very informative, and even funny in places.
> > The URL is: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Mailing list persona and approach are interesting; ESR and
Rick Moen (and Evelyn Mitchell at Tummy) _have_ done a nice
job clafirying and stating assumptions so newbies may become
clueful more quickly.
I look forward to seeing your revisions as submitted to Eric,
Smitty. The document, as with most that ESR does, is not
immutable, and he is always open to well-thought out
suggestions for improvement.
hmmm .. I have always found Rick Moen to be polite and civil
in excess of the degree he receives. When a person choses to
not RT_M or to not observe clearly posted mailing list rules
and charter (a item, as we have recently seen, causes some
difficulty), he is direct in pointing out the defect of
conduct.
Rick and I have discussed this. In a conversation I had a
while back with him, respecting another former Slugger who
persisted in trans-Continentally bending mailing list rules,
he replied:
---------- start quote -------------
As far as I'm concerned, the people who are worth our (or at
least my) time will find us courtesy of only modest outreach
efforts. That is one reason why I do a big installfest every
month and a user group meeting in my house twice a month.
Plus, I maintain informational Web pages, text files, and an
ftp site. Plus, I post to assist people (preferentially,
those showing willingness to help themselves) on sundry
mailing lists and newsgroups.
Occasionally, I find someone who either outright says, or
obviously has the attitude, of "_Convince me_ that I should
run Linux." My reply is a heartfelt "No thanks", because I
have much more rewarding things to do.
[he continued ...]
So, when I consider whom to help, and why -- when wearing my
other hat as a member of the _technical_ community -- I do my
best to notice who's likely to be a rewarding person to help.
Because I'm not just talking to hear myself speak: I'm trying
to perpetuate and further the community. Therefore, I'm much
happier to help someone who's acting as if he'll be worth my
time; someone who just might help others further that
tradition, later, in his turn.
This is a concept Eric Raymond and I did our best to explain
to people in this guide to newcomers:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
----------- quote ends ----------------
Money (here, product delivered) talks, BS walks.
If one is not willing to help themself by working through
clearly defined and freely available documentation (i.e.,
self-schooling), why should the community at large have to
bear the loss of signal-to-noise ratio and listen to answers
related and repeated _ad infinitum_ of the slow learner?
For several weeks, I kept track on redhat-list on people
having 'trouble' receiving external email on RH 7.0 and later
hosts. Never mind that it was documented several places in
the RELEASE-NOTES, and the Admin quide which accompanied the
product, and the electronic version freely available.
On the average, every 6 days, the question which is
exhastively answered (with testing highlights) at:
http://www.owlriver.com/tips/sendmail-tip.html repeated, and I
tossed that link. I _know_ it is in the official and
third-party list archive; Google had it as its third search
result on the topic, meaning it got widely linked and
followed.
But a lazy poster, unwilling to RT_M or to do minimal
research, concluded it was easier to not do research and ask
once again. I gave up posting it there, and _others_
started doing so.
The well-placed flame can burn off weeds and leeches.
Rick is direct; mailing lists are direct. I can be direct.
That is part of the charm of mailing lists <smile>
-- Russ Herrold
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