to newcomers: please try to solve the problem yourself beforeasking

[Kenneth Porter]

--On Saturday, September 11, 2004 10:21 AM -0400 Beej-in-GA 
<bryan-smith at mindspring.com> wrote:

> I was under the impression that the reason this list was set-up was so
> that information could be exchanged and, if necessary, help obtained for
> problems encountered in the running of Fedora.

True. But to the extent that the same question is repeated over and over, 
the answers get lost, as do the new questions. That's not a service to 
those seeking help.

> I would, however, like to point out that there are on most keyboards a
> key called delete. The purpose of this is to get rid of unwanted things.

This presumes that there's zero cost to acquiring and filtering. This is a 
very busy list, because of its broad scope. It's international, and many 
outside the US still have to pay by the byte transferred. (And the US 
standard of living is the highest in the world. It seems rude to me to 
force one's poorer brethren to pay yet more for another duplicate 
question.) The experts read a lot of lists. Monitoring a busy one like this 
takes time that could be spent elsewhere. Responses like Rene's just drive 
those experts with deep understanding away, leaving the list to "cargo cult 
experts" who know only a solution for a particular situation without 
knowing why it's a solution. (And I recognize that although I might be an 
expert on one list, I'm also a newb on many others. On a broad list like 
this, a given expert may only be qualified to answer a tiny fraction of the 
questions. Please don't make it harder to find them.)

> For the information of Mr. Marius and Mister Robert P. J. Day, it is very
> hard to do a google search and /or consult the (NON EXISTENT) manual when
> you don't know what question to ask or anything but the symptom you are
> seeing.

That's an easy one. As Mr. Day pointed out, google the text you would have 
posted to the list. Odds are that someone else asked the same initial 
question and you'll hit, if not on the exact answer, perhaps a better 
question. If something does NOT come up, then you've hit the jackpot and 
come up with a truly unique question, which experts welcome.