Re: Taming the mailing lists

[Hugh Foster]

>  I think this lists is a valuable resource for Fedora users (beginner
> and
>  advanced users). Not only for technical questions but also for general
>  Linux issue's.
>  It's amazing to see how many answers or ideas you get within 24 hrs. when
>  posting a question.
>  
>  Martijn 
This list has been an absolute lifesaver for me grappling with the
Penguin in a Microsoft-saturated company. Three times I've posted
questions - yes, dim-witted noob questions, but show-stoppers for me.
And every time I've had answers that worked quicker than looking it up
in Help.

Sorted by Thread at the mail client, I find it manageable.

28/04/2004 11:25:22 PM

Taming the mailing lists

[Tom Mitchell]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 11:27:16PM +0100, Hugh Foster wrote:
>  
>  This list has been an absolute lifesaver for me grappling with the
>  Penguin in a Microsoft-saturated company. Three times I've posted
>  questions - yes, dim-witted noob questions, but show-stoppers for me.
>  And every time I've had answers that worked quicker than looking it up
>  in Help. 
Well "quicker than looking it up in Help" is a problem for the list.  If
you have not looked for the answer then posting is the lazy way that
abuses the shared commons that is this list.

If you cannot find it then there is a bug in help and a good reason to
post a question.  Also help systems should not be painful as they are
today.  The reality of help systems is that they demand a foundation
vocabulary that takes some effort.  Spelling class -- look it up in
the dictionary comes to mind.

My impression of the quality wizzard class replies is that they are
looking up most of the content.  The difference is that they know what
to look for, how to look or just finished the research for some other
reason.

For Fedora to gain acceptance the product needs to progress from
cult/ wizzard to more facilitating of users helping themselves.
Check this out for a giggle:

   http://it.seek.com.au/showjob.asp?jobid=3525153

Since the last cycle of FC2 test is in progress think about
bugzillaing productive bugs on specific man pages or help documents
that would have helped you.  Man page changes are safe places for an
engineer to work when things are working.

"apropos ld" tells me that the old ways are history.  Try:

    # apropos ld| wc 



-- 
	T o m  M i t c h e l l 
	/dev/null the ultimate in secure storage.

Re[2]: Taming the mailing lists

[Hugh Foster]

Needs a Hat said:

>  Well "quicker than looking it up in Help" is a problem for
> the list.  If
>  you have not looked for the answer then posting is the lazy way that
>  abuses the shared commons that is this list. 
I see where I wasn't clear. What I meant was "answers that were
quicker than looking up something that existed in Help" Of course, I
use MAN and even the Help pages in KDE, unimpressive as they are. The
questions I have asked have been along the lines of "what software
does one use to duplicate FC boxes" and "I followed the MAN
instructions to install VNC and it doesn't work, help"

30/04/2004 8:12:47 AM

Taming the mailing lists

[Eric Diamond]

<snip> entire previous babble <snip>

"Wow! Just wow!"

I decided from the first post to leave this thread alone for the week to
see where it went. I'll say it again, "Wow!"

I think that a good look at the divergence of topic in this thread is an
excellent illustration of what kind of taming this list might need. 

While there were numerous posts that were on-topic, with several good
suggestions, there were far more that were little other than
passive-aggressive ranting. Plus, I think I counted three separate,
off-topic arguments.

Has it occurred to anyone else that maybe this should be a moderated
list?

 

Eric Diamond
eDiamond Networking & Security
303-246-9555
eric(a)ediamond.net