I realise it's difficult to discern legitimate mail from spam, etc. arriving at webmaster aliases, but this request has been fallen through the cracks for more a month, and I'd appreciate some help on it.
----- Forwarded message from rick ----- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 15:50:42 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Link to my and ESR's "Asking Smart Questions" page Hi there! I'm trying to reach the editor of the http://jakarta.apache.org/site/mail.html page, which links to "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way", http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html . Your page says: Ask smart questions. Every volunteer project obtains its strength from the people involved in it. You are welcome to join any of our mailing lists. You can choose to lurk, or actively participate; it's up to you. The level of community responsiveness to specific questions is generally directly proportional to the amount of effort you spend formulating your question. Eric Raymond has even written an essay entitled "Asking Smart Questions" [link] precisely on this topic. Although somewhat militant, it is definitely worth reading. Two things: (1) As you'll see if you take a closer look, it's actually co-written by Eric _and me_. I'd appreciate your fixing that. (2) Since you guys posted the above text, probably some time in 2001, both Eric and I have been barraged with e-mail by novice Java coders, asking us to help them debug their code or solve their Java technical problems. I've been trying for two years to chase down where all these Java-heads got the addled notion to write _us_, and I _think_ the proximate cause is the aforementioned hyperlink. Eric at least knows some Java, while I know very little, but neither of us appreciates having utter strangers (essentially) try to lob their homework at us. (And, no offence intended, but I don't even _like_ Java.) Their doing so isn't your fault, but it would be really nice if you would add something like: Note: Do NOT send your Java problems to that FAQ's authors. They welcome feedback on the FAQ's contents, but are simply not a Java help resource. The crowning irony is that one of our FAQ's very first sections is: When You Ask Choose your forum carefully -- Cheers, Founding member of the Hyphenation Society, a grassroots-based, Rick Moen not-for-profit, locally-owned-and-operated, cooperatively-managed, [EMAIL PROTECTED] modern-American-English-usage-improvement association. ----- End forwarded message ----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
