On Wednesday 04 September 2002 11:23, you wrote:
> 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.
Well, if I were to do it, I would tersely hit on the important points,
keeping it short and sweet. The fine points can come later.......
>
> 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.
I acknowledge that your experience with Moen is different than what I have
observed for myself.
>
> 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.
I completely agree with him on that point.
>
> [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?
I agree completely. man pages, info pages, HOW-TOs, /docs
should be consulted before asking questions.
>
> 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.
And what does the flame directed at a newbie that is not well-placed result
in?
Smitty
>
> 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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