One thought I have not seen expressed is that when the time comes that
people who do not know how to set their CLASSPATH are very interested in
servlets, this probably means that Nic, Milt et al are succeeding in their
goal of popularizing servlets, which is a good thing.
I agree that everyone should be frequently encouraged to follow the basic
etiquette that queries only be posted to a list when a person feels out of
other options. What a lot of people assume is that it is easy for someone
who has a lot of knowlege to put it into words, as if that person were a
book. "I am not a book", is a famous statement made to apprentices by their
busy mentors over the ages. In person, it is possible to throw the
appropriate book physically at the naif, but here we must keep things
virtual.
How about the following way of handling this inevitable problem: Someone at
Sun (namely a person getting a salary from what must be the primary
corporate beneficiary of this list) could edit out or redirect the
obviously inconsiderate posts. Kindly worded, private rejection notices to
the authors of edited-out posts could include a list of basic resources and
a brief restatement of list etiquette. A rejected post could then be
reposted (marked "repost" in subject) if the author feels wrongly denied,
with the certainty that the repost would make it out to the list, though
subject to an uncertain degree of criticism.
Beast regards,
DJ
At 06:19 PM 8/17/00 +0100, you wrote:
>>>> Milt Epstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 17-Aug-00 5:29:46 PM >>>
>>And it isn't just a matter of finding stimulating
>>discussions, it's a matter of when the signal-to-noise
>>ratio gets so low that it's not useful/practical/worthwhile
>>to stay on the list. This is a relatively high volume list,
>>and saying "just delete those messages" isn't a real
>>solution. If you end up just deleting 90% of the messages
>>on a list, what's the point of staying on it?
>
>I agree...
>
>I am constantly amazed at the rudeness of so many people who consider
>it okay to spend zero time looking for an answer to their problems but
>expect a reply from the list.
>
>In other words "do my work for me - I can't be bothered".
>
>I'm also amazed by the number of people who support that behaviour.
>
>People like Milt and myself have worked really hard over the last
>couple of years to make Servlets a popular and usefull web platform.
>We have sunk effort into FAQs and tried to guide people as to the
>correct behaviour on the list... we are largely ignored.
>
>You have to remember that we are the people who are putting in hours
>of unpaid work every week to help others on this list with genuine
>problems.
>
>And in doing so we have to put up with the endless "how do I
>configure JWSDK?" questions and even worse questions about totally
>unrelated subjects.
>
>And god forbid if one loses one's temper - a deluge of mails follows
>many of which will be quite hostile.
>
>The only real reason I stay here is that I need to make and recieve
>announcements now and again.
>
>
>Nic Ferrier
>
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>
>
___________________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body
of the message "signoff SERVLET-INTEREST".
Archives: http://archives.java.sun.com/archives/servlet-interest.html
Resources: http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/external-resources.html
LISTSERV Help: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/user/user.html
