David Dawes writes:
>
> I don't think it matters, because:
>
> 1. The original poster may read the answer via one of the archives of
> this list. How would we ever know?
>
> 2. If the original poster chooses to not follow up their question, that
> is their choice. Given that this is a volunteer group, not a paid
> support line, the onus must be on the user to follow up on their
> questions.
>
> 3. Most problems are not unique. If the answer doesn't benefit
> whoever first asked it, it may benefit someone else (either
> immediately or later via archives), and may contribute to the
> overall knowledge base of this group. Therefore I don't agree
> with the assessment that such answers end up in the "trash".
>
> 4. XFree86 doesn't formally provide support. This list is available to
> aid to the community as a whole in being self-supporting.
>
Looking at the huge amount of 'support spam' we receive we know that
some of the assumptions are not true for the vast majority of
postings.
Issue 1.: We see the same question being asked over and over again.
If these poster would consider email archives they whould not
have ended up here in the first place.
Issue 2.: Since I don't receive money for what I do here I would
like to make sure that the time I invest to look over
the support emails is at least not wasted.
Issue 3.: I only partly agree with this. If I have to spent time
to look thru log files (if they were provided) and ask the
reporter for further information. This is of little value
for the support community as long as I have not posted a
solution - which is what I'm still trying to find.
If we don't receive an answer we don't come any closer
to a solution but just wasted our time.
Issue 4.: I'm on this list mainly to catch bugs that hide behind
support cases and to see if things can be improved so that
people don't contact support so frequently.
I also try to help out answering questions.
I think I stated before that this list consumes a considerable
amount of my spare time. To decide if the reason for a posting is a bug or
a real problem or just 'user too stupid' one has to try to understand
the description in a posting - which can be rather tedious if people
tell their complete biographies or post in very poor English.
Looking thru logs can also be time consuming.
I would very much appreciate if we wouldn't point everyone with a
problem to this mailing list right away but let this person look
thru an FAQ *before* giving him the address of this list.
Whenever the server terminates with a FatalError() it tells the user
to send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This creates an enormous amount of traffic here even if it is a user
problem has been answered several times already - like our all time
favourite "cannot find font 'fixed'".
Egbert.
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