>Anyway, that is my rant. I wouldn't have offered it but,
>you asked. Bottom line is I think you should excuse
>yourself from the list if the emails get to be too many
>for you. I actually now use the archives to find the
>email addresses of people who seem friendly and don't
>mind offering help to idiots like me. I send a private email
>and if I can't get an answer that way I'll go to the list. Sad
>to say, I rarely get the help I need from the list. I think many
>people who might have answered have been run off by
>the 'experts'.
I'm sure I'm one of the 'experts' who you are referring to. I'm
sympathetic to your points but I'd like to explain my position.
My attitude to lists is one about etiquette. I think it's rude to
post an off topic question to a forum of 3000 people.
By analaogy you wouldn't stand on stage at the next JavaOne before
James Gosling's keynote and say: "can I ask, since there are loads of
people with experience here, how do I setup the classpath to load my
servlet? come on - it won't take you long to answer my question..."
No. You wouldn't do that because you'd get shouted at and people
would throw things.
Instead you would probably go up to someone on a servlet-engine booth
and ask the same question. They would be unlikely to shout at you -
they'd answer your question. You could also ask them about Swing, or
JDBC, or JavaMail and if they knew the answer they'd probably tell
you.
So I think that Stephen is doing exactly the right thing by
contacting people privately even though he doesn't think he has to.
Although I couldn't answer every question that every person has I
always try to answer private questions; whereas when someone posts
off-topic questions to SI I often throw things.
>Sorry if I offended anyone. This is not a personal attack.
I'm sorry that you feel that 'experts' on this list have been rude to
you or pushed you away. I do think you're problem would have been
solved by a JDBC list.
I also think that you have a point about the archives having
incorrect answers in them. Although I'm not sure we could do about
that except a large editorial exercise and the contrary argument is
that you always find the right answer in the end.
Perhaps you could help us out by pointing to servlet questions that
you have not been able to resolve through the archives.
Nic Ferrier
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