Mailing List Etiquette (was Re: can't run sshd on 23456 in Fedora 19)

Bill Oliver vendor at billoblog.com
Wed Jul 10 16:45:48 UTC 2013



On Tue, 9 Jul 2013, Paul Allen Newell wrote:

>[snip] 
> In this case, I hope the moderators are listening to the pros and cons as 
> expressed in this thread to determine what the list wants rather than looking 
> solely from the pov of what they think is best for the list.
>
> Paul


I think the big question is whether or not this list is one that is welcoming to casual users who come in with a question, visit for ahwile, and then leave, or if it is one devoted to knowledgeablr administrators and developers that actively discourages participation by newbies and casual users.

If it is the former, then it might be appropriate to enforce standards of conduct that will not discourage questions and comments from folk who may not have that competence.  All of us who have done any technical support know the desire to say "RTFM, moron."  But we all know that such a response is counterproductive when the questioner may not even be capable of understanding the manual.  If we want to bring someone along, we can't do what feels good, even if it is a stupid question presented poorly.  If the question is in good faith, we must do what is helpful and bite our tongues.

If it is the latter, then we can all be responsible for filtering posters that bother us, and moderation can be directed solely at whether or not there is some little bit of technical information that constitutes the pony buried in the pile of manure.  Since we are all competent here, and since bandwidth really isn't an issue any more, then we can be responsible for "moderating" who we choose to read ourselves.



billo



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