OK, I think that is a good idea to get in touch with the teachers; perhaps so they can give us an advance notice and we can understand what their course is meant to teach. So a more friendly request for the teachers to get in touch (or we ask directly the name/email of their teacher), but without the "so you stop irritating us" bit :-). Presumably the teachers dont want us to do the assignment for their students!
There could even be opportunities to do like a webinar or video with a short Jena intro, there are is probably some material from Elixir's Bring Your Own Data training events and similar that we could link to; if the teachers have better background materials and tutorials it can hopefully reduce our email load. On 23 Oct 2016 10:43 pm, "A. Soroka" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Then there are the obvious school examples, which seem to ask us the > actual assignment rather than Jena questions. It is fair for us to dodge > those, but perhaps in a less hostile way. > > It seems to me that this is the entire question: there aren't really the > kinds of problems Colin Maudry raised _except_ with these examples. And the > messages that worry me are not the initial questions that amount to "please > do my assignment" but the fact that helpful voices on the list give in > response to such questions good advice and next steps which are repeatedly > ignored. > > > I think we are friendly (perhaps sometimes too helpful!), but I wouldn't > go to a "go away and talk to your teacher" route, but rather in general > respond with what is expected of a good question and what the poster should > try first. > > I'm not sure if this particular remark is in response to my suggestion, > but just in case, I will clarify: I don't want to tell the students to go > away, I want to tell them to ask their teacher(s) to contact Jena directly > (instead of inadvertently and indirectly by giving assignments that show up > immediately as questions on the user list), hopefully to help create a more > appropriate kind of engagement for their students with the Jena community. > > --- > A. Soroka > The University of Virginia Library > > > On Oct 23, 2016, at 5:24 PM, Stian Soiland-Reyes <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > Agree to not go too aggressive in general, it could also strike down > users > > who like Jena as a tool (remember we have command lines and servers!) or > > have been recommended Jena, but who have not before used Java as > > programming language before. Here, tutorials and examples is what we > should > > point to. > > > > Then there are the obvious school examples, which seem to ask us the > actual > > assignment rather than Jena questions. It is fair for us to dodge those, > > but perhaps in a less hostile way. Many students and researchers I have > > interviewed in the Big Data community say they struggle to post their > > questions on mailing lists for the tools they use, as they get hammered > > down for basically not being geeky enough. Consequently they don't come > > back when their skill sets have improved and they could potentially have > > contributed back. > > > > Also remember that students have perhaps never before used a public > mailing > > list and already struggle to separate what is RDF, what is OWL, what is > > Java, what is Jena, what is just a bug in their own code. > > > > I think we are friendly (perhaps sometimes too helpful!), but I wouldn't > go > > to a "go away and talk to your teacher" route, but rather in general > > respond with what is expected of a good question and what the poster > should > > try first. Point to gist.github.com or similar as a way to paste code > > rather than getting it in the abstract ("I tried setting the literal") > > helps a lot. > > > > Also I think we can reply shorter (but friendly) as a bounce, rather > than a > > complete reply to help them with the more obvious assignment side. We can > > point to tutorials for coding as well; Software Carpentry has many great > > starting points. > > > > On 23 Oct 2016 7:43 pm, "Paul Houle" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> I find this thread disturbing. Many people in the RDF community have > >> worked a long time and it's just recently that the uptake has broadened > >> (people are looking at JSON-LD and starting to understand what it means, > >> not what any particular authority says that it means, but what it > >> actually means.) > >> > >> I do believe that problems should be made reproducable and as a group we > >> could industrialize that. For instance, a test project that can be > >> forked in github would be a great place to put in a query, put in a > >> graph, and then put in some rules at which point they could ask good > >> questions. > >> > >> I carefully read the answers to the bad questions because I am intensely > >> curious about strange details in Jena that trip people up. > >> > >> -- > >> Paul Houle > >> [email protected] > >> > >> On Sun, Oct 23, 2016, at 06:07 AM, Colin Maudry wrote: > >>> Dear Jena developers, > >>> > >>> Upon Andy Seaborne’s suggestion, I would like to share with you a > >>> concern we have with certain posts shared on [email protected]. > >>> In the last couple months, we have seen certain users repeatedly > sending > >>> questions that are either: > >>> > >>> * hardly related to Jena and Fuseki > >>> * very basic questions about RDF or SPARQL > >>> * betraying the lack of common knowledge in Java programming and > >>> coding good practice in general > >>> > >>> What’s worse, these users, in spite of repeated remarks, keep on being > >>> very vague in their questions, requiring the most patient subscribers > to > >>> ask many questions just to obtain a decent understanding of the > problem. > >>> A problem that is, again, often not much related to Jena or Fuseki. > >>> > >>> As a subscriber, I’m tired of their consistent failure to propose clear > >>> and concise questions and I wish the patient people who answer them > >>> spend their mailing time on more interesting threads. I also fear it > >>> makes certain subscribers silently go away because of this “noise”. > >>> > >>> I first thought of publicly complaining to these users, but I thought > >>> that the managers of the Jena lists should discuss it and take the > >>> appropriate measures. > >>> > >>> My suggestion is to: > >>> > >>> * inform the subscribers of an upcoming enforcement of the publishing > >>> rules (relevance, clearness, completeness, etc.) > >>> * stop answering the vague/off-topic/badly presented questions > >>> * if they insist, remind them the topic of the list and good practices > >>> in problem reporting, and warn them of a possible ban. > >>> > >>> Thanks for your attention, > >>> > >>> Colin Maudry > >>> https://twitter.com/CMaudry > >>> > >>> > >> > >
