On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 14:28 +1000, Peter Rundle wrote: > Alternatively people could learn to read and understand the discussion > before firing in an off target response. The discussion wasn't about > being hurt, it was about: > > 1. Distribution evangelism isn't helpful to the original poster
Agreed, whether it is debian nuts, fedora afficiandos or gentoo devotees it doesn't help anyone. > 2. partial or incomplete responses fired in early can prevent others who > might have been prepared to give a useful answer, not to. I have routinely seen partial or incomplete answers attract a barrage of corrections and the "correct way of doing things". Please note this barrage has not included the "you should switch to %DISTRO". If someone sees an incorrect answer and lets it go, there is a fair chance that that person would not have posted at all. > So now you'll probably respond with some glib "well if your not prepared > to put up with the grit that you get when posting to a mailing list you > probably should un-subscribe". Bingo! People are not participating > because, they consider their time to be more valuable than putting up > with the grit. It's not about being thick or thin skinned. Sorry but here's a glib response about human communications and the cruft and grit inherent to any form of. > Mailing lists it appears go through a life cycle, when young and fresh > the information is very useful and people are very helpful. Others > discover this and the group grows. Then the list matures, usually when > the original participants move on in their life, the quality of answers > decline and the jesters appear. The jesters drive other participants > away with the opportunist responses and the list degrades > further.....What part of the life cycle is Slug at? Are you contributing > to the decline of slug? Or by acknowledging there are many different > "thickness" people, can Slug defy the trend of lists to decline? God I hope not. However lists are not the only form of communication available to SLUG members. There is also the irc channel, in which many sluggers hang out and mock each others distros... umm assist in distro agnostic ways. I also believe there are forums on the cards for the new web site. I guess I would like to end this missive not by calling on people to be thick skinned but instead to install some filters. I don't filter SLUG main using any sort of rules, instead I have a quick gander and if it interests me I'll track it. If not I ignore it and move on. If I ask a question and someone RTFM's me (which no one has to date) or YUTWDUMI's (Your Using The Wrong Distro Use Mine Instead) me (again which no one has) I either ignore them or launch into long winded threads with them about the concepts behind what they have said to me. -- James Purser Producer/Presenter - Linux Australia Update http://k-sit.com - My Blog http://localfoss.org - LA Update Podcast, LUG Roundup and more Skype: purserj1977 SIP: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
