On Tuesday 27 January 2009 09:57:54 Steve Edwards wrote:
> The -user and -dev mailing lists are a valuable resource -- when they are
> not cluttered by posts unrelated to the "charter" of the lists.
>
> In my limited memory, this last weekend represents a new low in the
> "relevant subject to noise ratio."
>
> Replying to requests with meaningless, misleading, or misspelled subject
> lines ("I need help," "asterisk help," "Ntework Card") encourage careless
> posting and obfuscate useful replies from search engines.
>
> Also, while replying to such requests may seem helpful, some of the
> requests indicate such a lack of basic understanding that giving the
> answer is like giving a small child a very sharp knife when they ask for a
> slice of bread.
>
> For example: "How do I delete these files that end in that squiggly thing
> in my current directory and all directories below?"
>
> Since most of these users are probably running as root, a simple "extra
> space here and a missed character there" ("rm --force --recursive /* ~" vs
> "rm --force --recursive ./*~" can have catastrophic consequences.
>
> In an attempt to improve the quality of the lists, I propose the
> following: For a user's first 10 posts, they will receive a reply with a
> link to a web page and have to answer the following questions:While I agree with your overall sentiment, I believe a few of these items are a bit over the top, and perhaps I'm reading this with more seriousness than it merits. > i) I am fluent in English or I have attempted to have someone who is > review my request. In many cases, this just isn't possible. While it would be nice to have all posts in the King's English, a great many users are in locales which don't have an English-speaking population. These are likely the only lists to which they have ready access which understand both enough English, as well as enough telephony knowledge to process their questions intelligently. > j) I have run my request through my spell checking resources. Even I don't do this, and I know that I occasionally misspell some words. > Included in the web page would be the original message with the ability to > change the list the message is to be posted to, the subject line, and the > body of the message. > > Comments? I think we'd be better off posting a regular FAQ, perhaps weekly, with some of these suggestions, as well as providing a link to that FAQ from the mailing list signup page, along with a STRONG suggestion to peruse the FAQ first. -- Tilghman _______________________________________________ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
