>> Pointing newbies *politely* to the docs answering their question is OK--it at least helps teach them to help themselves--but it's tedious work and it also encourages other newbies to ask FAQ's. Telling a newbie to RTFM is a flame. Telling a newbie which M to F'ing R is not. << I think pointing to the relevant reading material is good if done without being rude. Why not to add a line or two as an answers and then direct the bewbie to the reading material. It breaks the ice and the newbie gets some encouragement. I know in my case, I read the documents, read them again but still did not have the answer (it was there but I did not get it... it was not a good day). When somebody pointed to the same documents, I re-read it and whoooooo...... it came to me. Some people are good at reading, some need little more push. I do not think using "F" word helps any. Newbie who ask questions are down because they believe that there is something HUGE wrong with what they are doing. The fact is that most of the times, it is something very simple. I have seen some questions which I thought were just plain basic... then, just a month or so ago, the same questions were not so basic. Kirti -----Original Message----- From: Dave Sill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 10:25 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Newbies vs. arrogant experts (was: Newbie with tcpserver) [Barry, the "Re[2]" syntax your mailer uses is non-RFC-compliant.] Barry Hill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >First of all: This is the most arrogant list I have come across. All >the other lists that I'm on help out beginners with a short answer (we >were all beginners once ... ), but here the beginner is either told to >RTFM or told to pay for support. First of all, don't judge the entire list based the actions of a small nonrepresentative sample. Second, the offer of commercial support made to Pablo was sent privately, not to list. Pablo's reposting it publicly is at least as rude as trolling the list for clients. >If the beginner can't find the >relevant section in the FAQ then answers have to be teased out of the >list, which generates more traffic than one short and helpful mail >(this thread is a good example of this). There are at least four schools : 1) Flame newbies posting FAQ's. 2) Answer newbies posting FAQ's. 3) Point newbies to the answers to their FAQ's. 4) Ignore newbies posting FAQ's. I've listed them from least effective to most effective, IMO. Flaming is supposed to be a deterrent--and it might be--but it's just plain rude. Answering FAQ's is "nice", but it's tiresome and contributes to lowering the signal/noise ratio on the list and it encourages other newbies to ask their FAQ's. Pointing newbies *politely* to the docs answering their question is OK--it at least helps teach them to help themselves--but it's tedious work and it also encourages other newbies to ask FAQ's. Telling a newbie to RTFM is a flame. Telling a newbie which M to F'ing R is not. Ignoring FAQ's is the easiest and safest approach. It encourages the newbie to search the web, list archives, etc. and doesn't reward newbies by answering their question. It keeps the signal/noise ratio high, and it keeps the civility and morale high. >AFAIK (and I'm no expert), TCPSEVER is configured in the command line, >and uses /etc/tcp.* files for security & access settings. The manual >files are installes with the software and can be read with "man >tcpserver". Else they're in the source directory. The documentation is on the web. No man pages are included with ucspi-tcp. -Dave
