Jamin Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I may be out of line here. However, this is not the first time I've seen
>snappy rude responses from people in response to others asking for help. I
>am simply quoting this message as it is the most recent.
I'm not a big fan of newbie smackdowns, though a repeat offendor might
warrant one. I think newbies generally respond better to reward than
punishment. E.g., instead of:
Your mailer is broken.
I'd say something like:
Please don't include messages you're replying to as appendages to
your own messages. It's a waste of bytes, and it annoys many
people--most of whom are too polite and/or busy to bother
complaining. Instead, quote small passages, prefixing each line
with ">". This puts the relevant information right where it's
needed, and makes it easy for people to tell who said what.
The former approach *might* work, but is more likely to offend the
newbie. The latter is polite and informative. An educated, unoffended
newbie is much more likely to want to change his ways.
>As for qmail, I will be the first to tell you that LWQ and the installation
>instructions with qmail itself are for the most part highly inadequate.
Ouch. "... LWQ ... [is] ... highly inadequate." In a way, of course, I
completely agree. I've tried to make it newbie friendly, but nobody
knows better than I that it still leaves some newbies behind. However,
I have to ask why you didn't complain to me when you were having
problems with it. Without such feedback, there's not much chance of it
getting fixed.
-Dave
