On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 12:31:47 -0400, Dave Sorenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have to agree with Chris on this one.. It should be ok to ask questions > about hardware (batteries being hardware), and proper disposal of batteries > is a valid issue (kudos to someone who wants to dispose of the batteries > properly).
Ok, granted on this one. I only mentioned this one in passing anyway (it was in parentheses, for pete's sake). > >From the tone of the original windows related post (clearly marked as OT) > this is a person who uses Linux, understands Linux, but is being required by > external forces to use Windows. He is respectfully turning to a source of > knowledge where he is comfortable asking questions. Maybe he does not > frequent windows only lists because he does not use windows? As such maybe > he is not sure if he can get a timely, relevant answer? Why should a > respectfully submitted question draw rebuke especially when the author marks > it as off topic and respectfully submits it to begin with? Dave, go back and read my message again. The question was entirely not appropriate for the list and I replied respectfully and politely. I didn't tell the poster to go stuff it or anything like that. What I said was: "Might I suggest asking a more appropriate forum like[...]" and proceeded to give several places where I thought the question *would* be on topic. Not content to leave it at that, though, I even made a suggestion of how to make the question on topic: "Or, if you want to make it relevant to this list, put a linux box in front of it and direct the appropriate connections to the windows box." If that meets your standard of a "rebuke", you must be extremely thin-skinned. > Many of the people on the list have to use various operating systems in > their work and as such can be a valuable source of knowledge. To ban actual > computer related questions will only stunt the usefulness of this list. I > agree the main topic should focus on Linux software and issues, But this > post is still valuable (and marked clearly OT enough) for me not to object > to it's posting. In fact it is more relevant than the recent political > postings and a large number of other recent topics. Sure, it is actually a computer related topic. But, it's still not appropriate for this list. There are many ways it could be made appropriate and if any one of them had been attempted, I would have absolutely no problem with the post. But, asking for a windows program on a linux list is not appropriate and I, for one, refuse to give it a free pass, especially when I know the person involved and know him to be fairly clueful. > Mark this post as off topic as well, but I think Trilug leadership needs to > step up and address the sniping taking place on the list of late. We need to > civilly discuss issues and not quell honest Linux/ Linux users questions. Sniping? Please explain. Asking people to stay on topic, especially when done in (what I thought was) a respectful manner is not sniping. Tanner Lovelace -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
