On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 01:07:32AM +0530, Clinton Goveas wrote:
Who let the dogs out? On a more serious note, it is good that some of these issues did come out so that we get a chance to see where we stand on each of them.
First of all, you seem to be using a rather strange quoting style. The string "> " is considered the default leadin for lines that are quoted from earlier messages. Most mail clients are designed to recognise this leadin and use a different style to render quoted text.
Also please do not just put your reply on top of someone else's mail ... a lot of people have been doing that lately. It really hurts the mail digest that some people read. Also, such a style leads to unnecessarily long mails that have very little signal to noise ratio.
So this list is only for sys admins? The other Linux users should seek help or information elsewhere? People don't discuss issues here to impress others with "quality". They have problems and ask for solutions, and I think this makes this list a good source of tactical knowledge in the Linux area. If you take that away, this list is pretty much devoid of utility.
The ultimate selling point of free software has been the vast user community that is ready to help and really really comprehensive documentation that _does_ work. Enough people have put in enough effort to generate documentation that can take care of almost all questions that a lay user could possibly ask. People should atleast take an equivalent amount of effort to first search for documentation! If everyone starts asking every little question on the list, will any useful work ever get done?
By "tactical knowledge" I assume you mean short-term, troubleshooting capability. Do you mean to say that people on this list are here to solve every little problem that comes along for Joe Ramaswamy, the newbie? First try to solve the problem yourself - search on google, look at the documentation. If you still can't post here describing what you did, and clearly stating what went wrong. If people can help and have the time, they will.
NOTE: "You" symbolises any general user, not just Clinton Goveas.
Common questions can be clubbed together to form FAQs, which new members should see before they arrive at the sign-in info page for this list. This would do away with Phillip's common nagging questions problem.
Take cover, people! He abused the "P"-word!!! :-D
People don't even read the list guidelines that are sent to them when they sign in. You expect them to read an FAQ _before_ they join, which probably answers questions that they don't even know exist??
Sameer.