On Friday, November 03, 2006 1:10 PM [GMT+1=CET], Terry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Dotan Cohen wrote:
>> On 03/11/06, Harold Fuchs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> On Friday, November 03, 2006 10:33 AM [GMT+1=CET], Dotan Cohen
>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>> If someone can figure out how to subscribe to a mailing list
>>>> and send a question, then how is it that he does not know what to
>>>> do with an installer???
>>> <snip>
>>> Also, the fact that someone doesn't know what to do with an
>>> installer doesn't mean they are stupid. It just means they are
>>> ignorant. The difference is that ignorance can be fixed. I know
>>> lots of people who don't know the very simplest concepts of their
>>> Operating Systems ("directories", "select", "file associations" for
>>> example) but who are decidely not stupid and are extremely
>>> knowledgeable (i.e. not ignorant) in fields you and I have probably
>>> never even heard of.
>>
>> I'm certain that there are. I don't mean to insult the users that
>> post. But I subscribe to quite a few mailing lists, and none see the
>> really basic questions like "can I delete the installer", or better
>> yet, the posts with no subject line at all. Even an ignorant person
>> knows what the subject line of email is. If it happened once, then I
>> wouldn't be mentioning it. But we see probably five of those a week.
>>
>> Dotan Cohen
> With respect, I concur. There seems to be large number of enquiries
> on this list which those making them could easily answer with about
> the same amount of effort it takes to locate the list's address and
> send an email.
People who need to do word processing or to prepare presentations or whatever
are not necessarily ofay with computers and installing software. I'd be willing
to bet that for a large number of users OOo is the first thing they've ever had
to install themselves. This is particularly true in the Windows world. In most
cases people use what came already installed on the machine from whatever shop
they bought it. Even if they use a computer at work it's likely that they are
not allowed to install software themselves so the issue has never arisen.
Also, as a registered user of this e-mail list I get scores if not hundreds of
e-mails per day. If I wanted to ask a simple question and, as a result, got
several hundred messages before seeing a reply I'd not be a happy bunny.
Especially if I was a busy person anyway having to deal with lots of e-mails
as part of my "real" life.
Perhaps we should alter the format of the list. I'm not sure what they are
called but there are many web based forums where you can set a "watch this
thread" flag so that you only get notified when someone responds to a message
within a thread you started. I've seen some of these forums where registration
is a requirement and some where it isn't. We could then have a class of user
(the volunteers) who get everything and another class (the "customers") who
only get stuff s/he has flagged as interesting.
Would this be a good idea?
Harold Fuchs
London, England
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