Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:27:55 +1000 From: jonathan michaels <jon@caamora.com.au> To: Ian J Hart <ianjhart@freeloader.freeserve.co.uk> Cc: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Roasting Newbies Message-ID: <19991009122755.A7948@caamora.com.au> In-Reply-To: <37FE86B1.948CE7FA@freeloader.freeserve.co.uk>; from Ian J Hart on Sat, Oct 09, 1999 at 01:05:05AM %2B0100 References: <199910071840.OAA25123@blackhelicopters.org> <37FE86B1.948CE7FA@freeloader.freeserve.co.uk>
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please excuse me i've redirected this to freebsd-newbies and away from freebsd-stable, where this is not a topic for discussion based upon the reading of teh charter, though i believe it should be discussed in all lists. that is how to properly handle a newbies sometimes inapropriate questions. ian, On Sat, Oct 09, 1999 at 01:05:05AM +0100, Ian J Hart wrote: > Thought for the day: From little Newbies do mighty Gurus grow. this is one thing the presnet generation of so called gurus, has either forgotten or is trying to actively discourage. > Some positive stuff on the list for a change; about time. What I cannot > understand is why anyone is suprised that stable recieves _inappropriate_ > mail. If you track stable you are _REQUIRED_ to subscribe to _THIS_ > mailing list. (Yes I am shouting, sorry). My understanding of human > nature says this is where any questions are going to get posted. Perhaps > something (less dry) in the subscription acknowledgement might help. yup, whwere ever the questons are asked thats where the aswers and flames will flow ... just like water that always flows down hill from where it starts. > Justin Wolf is right on track. Ask yourself, why is Linux getting such a > lot of press? It's reached critical mass in terms of number of users, > thats why. FreeBSD can be the best O/S ever, but if people (aka. Newbies) > don't use it, it may not survive. > > If you/we are going to provide basic help for newbies (myself included), > it needs to be friendlier than man. HTML or even info would be better > (IMHO). It might also be worth aliasing "help". Before you all run away > screaming, I'm suggesting that a level of indirection is useful. This > week help might mean man newbie. Next week it could mean info newbie, or > whatever. Keeping the user inferface the same is _a_good_thing_. most (ok all) of what you have said here is good solid advice. but, thier is one small thing that you and most every other person has failed to address. this being the rude arrogance of several of teh so called gurus. this then breeds an atmosphers of active, agressively hostile repression towards newbies in particular and as an after thought to all those who are by nature, culture or language usage different to, from, those that have decleared themselves (godlike) keepers of teh faith. back in the days before popularity the tcp/ip knitted world (yup been thier done that and remember what it was like) we all had a respect for each other and treated one another as equals and with moodest kindness. thier were rules of etiquette, no not this now stylised nettiquete garbage .. rather, it was based on treating people as people and relying on the ability to observe what was going on and our inate ability to think. if one person posted inapropriately, all the people who responded and yes many did not just the moderator (if thoer was one) or the keeper of the list etc. all the responces were sent by private email, as were the replies. it was always kept of off the list. thier was a less voyeurestic desire to see one person dismbowled by a pack of raveing, salvering hyenas madened by the prospect of yet another kill ... driven on by the frenze of the onlookers. may be this might be a bit of an overly emphasised description, but not by much, not by much at all. whenever one of these incidents happen the leaders of teh pack have always an excuse, a reason fro thoier very very poor examples of leadership and dicipline. its always "but the other guy started it" .. i used to get belted (remeber the over the knee, or over the chair and yor fathers belt?) for fighting, it was to be expected, both the scuffles and teh inevitable punishment. but, what lefet the biggest impression on me (and the only times i would actually have a bruise or two) was when i tried to blame the "other guy" for starting the fight. thier is an old saying "it takes two to tango", it is true that some people only post in mailing lists to cause disruption, if we followed my grandmother advice and treated everybody as people we would soon discover who the disruptive one are and then we as a group would be able to take clean and appropriate action. so what did my grandmother advise, simply put and poorly translated to english by me .. treat everybody with respect, kindly see to thier needs and walk away from those who only seek to hurt you, if they follow you don;t leave them standing. i'd convert this to the way we used to correspond over the fledgling netowrk connections that most of us take fro granted and treat with such malicious contempt. for the trouble makers, the private email take away thier audience, they will go to some other place to find that audience,ergo we will be left in piece, and, not pieces. for the newbies, the private email sets an example of how to deal with difficult and or off topic email. it also shows them that you respect thier person and won't open them to public ridicule .. no matter how gently its done or how well meaning, a public drubbing is still a public drubing and still hurts an awfull lot. we the survivors of our presdisesors vivisctitudes need to lead by example. speak politely, with dignity and a level of respect that will hearten and reasure the person that this is not a bad place to be. please note, i don't refer to the sickenly syrup like "politically correct" language that passes fro and in particular american english at the moment. rather an opness that envites people to speak freely and hopnestly without fear of "netcops", or the grammar police or the spellingcops et al. sure thier are those who delight in poor spelling as an ends to a mean .. but thier are far more people who don't have englsih as a even a second language, more like third or fourth. then thier are the disabled, ones who have poor motorskills, poor language and thinking by way of significant neurologicial damage or aqired brain damage. as many people as thier are, thier are as many levels and types of disability. the Internet was once a hope a dream, now it has become a hype that is only souring into some marketers worst nightmare. we built the world we now inhabit, it dodn't happen, nobody took a packet of instant earth mix and added the obligatory two eggs half cup of milk, dash of salt and sugar to taste. anyway, i've probably babbled on for two long and said little of real value. so i;ll take my leave. but, please note, i'm still here after 5 years because i like freebsd, its easy fro disabled person to use learn and talk about. linux has nowhere near the same level of consistancy, integration or coherance as freebsd. also, most of the people i find interesting to talk to and who can relate to me or people like me also use freebsd. well i suppose i take these issues (roasting newbies) becaue they are a bit closer to my door step than to many others, but, on anther, a more human level, treating people like garbage is never a good idea. forgetting the old axiom what goes around comes around, witht he constant incidious encroachment of technology into our lives we live in more and more isolated corners of the world. we as a people ned to remember that we are people, not machines, hell even machines make mistakes and we don't "roast" them. no, we dismantle them and thow them away ... i have also noticed this distrubing trend in this corner of teh unix world as well. well i've said enough .. regards to all jonathan -- =============================================================================== Jonathan Michaels PO Box 144, Rosebery, NSW 1445 Australia ===========================================================<jon@caamora.com.au> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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