Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 20:06:04 -0600 From: "Jeffrey J. Mountin" <sysop@mixcom.com> To: Burton Sampley <burton@bsampley.vip.best.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Mailing lists archives Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970328200603.00c4fa24@mixcom.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
At 01:32 PM 3/28/97 -0800, Burton Sampley wrote: >One important point you might have overlooked about the 'How to get >more..." message. This message is sent only to those individuals that >already subscribe to the mailing lists. This does not get the message >accross to the people who need this info, ie. the newbies (I think we've >all been there) that go to the www.freebsd.org support page. Most of >these people do not subscibe to the list, therefore how are they suppose >the benifit from this info? One thing about the web site is response time. I think the ftp and http are on the same server. People don't like to wait for pages, being on a T1 I can't see waiting, yet I click and work on something else rather frequently. >My second point. Before writing this message I visited the support page. >The first paragraph basically says the mailing lists are the primary >support machanism and when it doubt send your message to -questions. It >does state that a search functions is available, but the presentation of >the info points to the mailing list first and the search function as an >alternative. I didn't look too hard, but maybe a version of the 'How to >get more...' message should be posted on the website so that if the user >chooses to send a message to the mailing list, they must read this message >first. I suppose that adding that try reading the FAQ and handbook pages *before* posting. There have been 2 questions recently that I answered and could have been answered by using the man pages, which shows that some beginners don't know the infomation that they have at their fingers. Just a note about normal human behavior. I, like most admins (I'd like to hope), will try to find what we need locally and pore over man pages, read paper docs, seach web pages, etc and then ask. Of course sometimes admins have a mission critical problem and immediate checking comes up with no guess or the guesses were dismissed as not the reason and no one else to ask in shop. Now take the average worker, no offense, they come to something beyond their experience. How many have the mindset to further themselves and literally take a crash course? Not many, but of course we are talking about someone that wants to run a *nix system, so I hope that they are ready to learn. Since I mention admins and I run the back room of an ISP, the other part of human nature is to look for a scapegoat. "It's not my end." "I didn't make any mistakes." Then of couse we have to consider how complex the install process is and just how much there is to configure, but once it is up the man pages are there. Some are better than others and some are cyptic. I suppose 'man man' is a good start. Frankly I got real tired of "Is this working?" Oh, mail, why don't you send a test message? Is the web server down? Can you bring up a page? (this happened both while and after I helped front line support) Of course I've had a few clients that were not even connected. The point is that many people will not put forth the effort to find what they need and ask. Some days I am not here, barring a possible emergency. The "Installing and Running FreeBSD" book that comes with the CD has a lot of information that even I, after dealing with BSDi, found very useful. >From what I have seen there are a lot of problems installing and I had quite a few a while back, but I wasn't even on this list (just doing my job I guess). To sum all this up, my thought is that some reading is in order before jumping in and installing. Some can go without it, but still *nix has a learning curve.... That never ends. >As an alternative, maybe a webpage can be created with the top ten (or >twenty) most common questions and answers. I know this info is covered in >the FAQ, but there is so much info in the FAQ, that some users feel it's >easier to send a help message than plow through the FAQ. That's why I'm >suggesting a limit of ten but no more than 20 items. The first two that >come to mind are the problem of the missing lib in emacs (from the 2.1.5R >CDROM) and the infamous atapi.flp. Possibly it is time to expand the FAQ part of the pages. The only other thing to mention is that lists should not be spammed, meaning one does not post to all possible lists. The charter page should be read and not just the list summary and yes, this is highlighted. On that thought maybe there should be an XFree list. Hmmm.... I just looked and there are a few others that I should be on, as I have had some non-general questions.<g> Guess I can also say that there are a lot lists to chose from and that can be confusing too. Time to add a few. Just hope that I'm not degrading the S/N ratio. 8-) My thought is that sometimes opinions are good, as well as technical. There is always more than one way.... ------------------------------------------- Jeff Mountin - System/Network Administrator jeff@mixcom.net MIX Communications Serving the Internet since 1990
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3.0.32.19970328200603.00c4fa24>