NoOp: You are taking the response personally. That is not the intent. The
response deals with the user interface to the archives not with the attitude of
the list members. In the remarks below I'll have to play Devil's advocate. Some
of what I say really applies in my own personal case.
--On Thursday, November 05, 2009 06:59:29 PM -0800 NoOp <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 11/05/2009 03:39 PM, John Kaufmann wrote:
In a message dated 2009.11.05 17:52 -0500, James E. Lang wrote:
I've just looked at the archives and it is not a newbie friendly place
either.
Indeed not ;-) - and the search facility is both primitive and buggy.
In what way(s)?
1. Are you agreeing that this list is not a newby friendly place?
If so, you think wrong. Had you (and James E. Lang) actually taken
time to to *read* the archives, you would have found that many of us OOo
volunteers have spent hours, and more hours, and sometimes days
attempting to respond to "newbie" OOo issues and questions.
The list (and thus its archives) does indeed supply much good information that
is relevant for both newbies and more experienced users of OOo.
Why don't you take the time to check out the thousands of
posts/responses that many of us have provided to other OOo users over
the years? How about the responses that you've received here? Were they
not to your satisfaction? Didn't you find that other users at least
*tried* to assist you, even through some (most) of your _voluminous_
posts where one has to really search to find the question you are
asking? Even then, did we (the list responders) not meet your esteemed
expectations?
The key phrase in this paragraph was "thousands of posts/responses." The elite
of this list assume that since they have been working with software of this
type and on mailing lists like this one for a long time that everyone should
know what they know about browsing the list archives. On another thread, Paul
told someone to look at the archives to see what the administrators can and
can't do. The initial response to that message pointed out the frustration
encountered in attempting to do just that. When I look at the archives I find
no good way for the uninitiated user to locate information from the past. The
best that I see that can be done is to look at the messages which I have
archived in my IMAP mail folders. Many of those are on topics such as this or
are arguments with people who are trying to get away from this list after
getting themselves entangled in it for the purpose of asking a single
relatively simple question.
If the list were split up into one for Writer, one for Calc, one for Base, one
for Math, one for Impress, one for "administrative mumbo jumbo," etc. then
things might be more manageable. One benefit of such a split is that newbies
might be more willing to remain on a list that addresses only the component of
OOo that they use.
Another thing that might make use of the archives more tolerable for me would
be the ability to import the archives into one of my IMAP folders (preferably
with threading intact). I don't have any idea how that could be accomplished
but I know how to search an IMAP folder for relevant messages using my e-mail
clients.
2. The search facility for the archives is just fine and is on par with
most any other archive search. Perhaps if you'd learn to use nntp and
review the list with the gmane.org (it's free you know) server all you'd
need to do is a simple search on email address, subject, etc.
To paraphrase your response, "If you don't know how to use OOo then learn how
to use nntp or gmane.org (whatever they are). It may be free but that does not
mean that newbies will know what to do if and when they encounter these strings
of alphabet soup.
But let's go back to the standard OOo archives:
<http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SearchList?list=users&searchText=kaufmann
&defaultField=author&Search=Search> doesn't work for you?
How am I supposed to find that this is the string of characters that will give
me anything useful? For that matter, will it give me anything useful?
1-40 of about 158 search results: (Sorted by relevance)
works for me.
Here, let's try the same for NoOp:
<http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SearchList?list=users&searchText=noop&def
aultField=author&Search=Search> 1-40 of about 2,617 search results: (Sorted
by relevance)
And what does "relevance" mean to the software in this context?
or
<http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SearchList?list=users&searchText=Barb%40o
nr.com&defaultField=author&Search=Search> or
<http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SearchList?list=users&searchText=Fuchs&de
faultField=author&Search=Search> or
<http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SearchList?list=users&searchText=knott&de
faultField=author&Search=Search> or
<http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SearchList?list=users&searchText=mckee&de
faultField=author&Search=Search> [Brian's a little more elusive as he's
changed over time - but perhaps
<http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SearchList?list=users&searchText=brian&de
faultField=author&Search=Search> will work instead.
And as a newbie how do I know to search for kaufman, noop, barb, fuchs, knott,
mckee, or brian for that matter?
There are *many* more contributors to the list, that I've not bothered
to add, that have spent a considerable amount of their *unpaid* time and
effort on this list responding to any and all questions on this list for
several years.
And their efforts are appreciated. It's a question about finding information
about a particular subject that may have been identified with a mishmash of
different phrases and for that matter misspellings. Knowing your name does not
help me to find information about spreadsheet columns that don't print on the
page where they are supposed to as I recently reported or how to compose
paragraphs in special ways in Writer documents as has been discussed many times
for various permutations of that topic.
Were you not such a pompous ignorant ass, you might have bothered to
actually *use* the archive search facilities before making your statements.
I did indeed look at the archive search facilities as a newbie to that
functionality and found it very difficult to use. Calling us names does not
help anyone.
So, here's an exercise for you; add up and count the amount of posts
that you and Mr. Lang have actually posted on this list (you now know
how to use the archive search facility) in response to assisting *any*
other OOo user issues.
I agree that as a 71 year old small scale (mostly personal) user of OOo I have
not answered nearly as many questions as you. That does not mean that I have
made no effort to contribute my own knowledge based on my experience. It is
impossible for everyone on the list to give more than he takes. The more
experience one has the more he can contribute.
Now add up the amount of posts that you've made asking for help, responses
that you've received, and the amount that were helpful to you and, of course
how many posts you've made since joining this list that just simply waste
people's time (like this one).
I am very sorry you feel this way. I had hoped that I was shedding light rather
than heat on an ongoing topic that is relevant to the operation of this list.
If there were an "administrative mumbo jumbo" list as I described earlier in
this post it would probably be the place to discuss these matters. The Discuss
list is not the right place either.
--
Jim
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