On Thu, 27 Mar 2003 11:48:07 +0530 Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe wrote:
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 11:15:26AM +0530, Ravindra Jaju wrote:
fork(); fork();
1] Newbies 2] General 3] Geeks
With all due respect, I'd like to point out that segregation on the basis of a user's level of knowledge is plain wrong and counter-productive. It's wrong because:
- a user may not be able to judge which list to join based on a self-evaluation, w/o knowing the kind of discussions taking place on the list. For me the prospect of trawling through the archives just to look at the level of discussions is rather repulsive.
- the user may not get a migration path that a general purpose ML offers. Looking back at the difference in the kind of mails that I used to send when I joined and now, there's a perceptible difference (for the better, I hope :p). I could also observe the same with some other regulars who joined after me as total newbies and worked their way up to be contributors to meaningful discussions.
It's counter-productive because without many geeks lurking around the newbie list, people won't get to know about the non-existence of Linux 8.0, they would sulk at Linux because it uses a lot of precious little RAM while the abundantly available swap stays unused etc. Unless some geek takes up the cause of educating the newbies - something that the current list also handles nicely.
I suggest another idea ... something that we do here at KReSIT. When someone sends a mail to the list that doesn't fit the guidelines, _everyone_ should mail the poster directly saying why they think the mail is not good. I use a pre-written template to do this at KReSIT, no need to waste time typing things out again and again. Just make sure send the mail to the poster and not the list!
This practice is also followed on comp.lang.c++.moderated (if the message gets beyond the moderators, that is). I agree that this could be fine with two exceptions:
- not everyone should remind the OP of the guidelines - the reminder should be posted on the list and no one should bother replying to a poster who's been reminded (or reply privately).
A polite reminder and general ignorance by the members does make a poster review his/her stance.
That, coupled with a good verbose rant on the list once in a while should be enough, I think.
How about taking turns at it >:)