Michael Little wrote: > I dont know about the rest of you but this list has turned into a soap box > for 'computer experts'. Why does a simple question have to turn into a > reason for everyone to share their vast knowledge of computers.
Very simple. Because we enjoy it. We "computer experts" are not paid money to assist you by GTA or by you directly. Several of us I know provide free advice here, directly competing with our own businesses, answering questions for FREE when we could be charging you through the nose for it, spending time we could be working with paying customers. I have also seen evidence that many of the GTA employees who participate here are ALSO doing so on their own free time (or they work some VERY strange hours and days), and again, THEY are ALSO competing with their own support-for-fee business (and this, by the way, indicates a measure of belief in their product which is rare in any industry at the moment, and by itself is evidence of the quality of product GB is -- that their employees believe in it enough to devote their off-work time to it, as well). We do not owe you a thing. You have no right to claim our knowledge without compensation. Any attempt to take my knowledge (=work =labor) against my will, I shall deal with it as I would any other form of robber or looter. I expect compensation for the spreading of knowledge I have worked very hard to accumulate. Even if the rewards are not monetary, they must exist in some other way. That is the way it works. If there are no rewards, I (and I would guess others) pack up and go elsewhere. The rewards and compensation are that we enjoy helping people. We appreciate and enjoy the on-and-off list notes of thanks and appreciation, the feedback that we have provided useful assistance. We enjoy the mind stretching discussion. We enjoy bouncing ideas off each other. We enjoy teaching others. We enjoy LEARNING from others who know things we do not. This is the way intelligent people are -- I know enough intelegent people, I feel very safe in using the 'we' to refer to more than just myself. I have found ample compensation in the GNATbox mail list and other lists I participate in, and thus, I am very glad to participate, and I have reason to believe others appreciate my contribution and the contribution of other "experts". If you do not like this, the Internet is a very big place, you are very free to start your own list of computer non-experts, safe from those who have knowledge and experience, or putting whatever "experts" come your way under whatever leash you can get them to wear, for whatever compensation you can get them to accept. >I personally > don't give a rats ass what you all THINK about floppy drives. The guy had a > simple question that deserved a simple answer. It was a simple question, perhaps. Simple questions do not imply simple answers. Just as the classic "have you stopped beating your wife?" simple question has no simple "yes/no" answer, very often a question, such as the one which started this thread, has meaning far beyond what the asker thought. We have addressed some of the points we could have addressed. We got (slightly) sidetracked. And we enjoyed it. Debt paid. > I don't care what you think about keyboards, floppies, etc. Have some > consideration for the other people on this list who don't appreciate your > time wasting junk mail. You are free to delete my E-mail or that of anyone else without reading it (as are we) -- I believe there are even mail client packages which will do that for you automatically. You are free to ignore any threads which have run their course of utility in your mind. We don't babble on about things to torment you, that is not how we (or at least I) get our compensation. But we enjoy our compensation. And, if the observation that people are more likely to write in complaint than in praise is correct, I think I would have to say that other people are enjoying and appreciating our compensation, too. Who is John Galt? Nick. -- http://www.holland-consulting.com/
