Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 00:49:32 -0500 (EST) From: James <jamesh@etsu.edu> To: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> Cc: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, jhhiggins@prodigy.net Subject: Re: newbies mailing list Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980301003342.10748C-100000@localhost> In-Reply-To: <19980301162232.44505@welearn.com.au>
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On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Sue Blake wrote: > On Sun, Mar 01, 1998 at 01:32:34PM +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: > > On Sun, 1 March 1998 at 10:56:51 +1100, Sue Blake wrote: > > > > It's hard to explain my reasons and you'll probably find this hard to > > > understand, but I ask you for the moment just to accept that the need might > > > be felt to exist, at least for some people. Freebsd-questions is good and > > > useful, and so is the FAQ etc, but there's still something missing. > > > > I think you'll find that something will continue to be missing. I've > > thought about these problems, too, but I haven't come up with a useful > > solution. Life's a bitch. > > Perhaps it is necessary to reach that stage in order to see clearly whatever > it is that is still missing. Even so, much could be gained. > > > I think that I could summarize the arguments against with "the blind > > leading the blind". Also, the new person that just figured out how to see spreading his knowledge a bit. Sometime just learning it lends to teaching it. Ever had an expert explain something trivial to you? Sometimes it can be painful. > > Of course it would. I don't see that as a problem, so long as nobody > expected it to be anything else. > > > At least in -questions you have a couple of one-eyed men. You also have a > > number of people who can scare newbies off, sure, but that will happen > > even if there's a newbies list. > > There are some people who on some occasions treat newbies badly. Sometimes > it's by accident, sometimes of necessity. I'm not just talking about nasty > comments. Far more common are answers which sound like a line out of the man > page, or assume obvious things like that the person will know to restart the > damn thing (and how to) after changing its configuration :-) > Not to mention that despite the fact that questions *is* relatively safe for newbies some people may be intimidated by posting what might seem to be a trival question to a group that does have some considerable meat to it. > There's no workable solution. If every answer spelled everything out, the > list would become huge and boring, many who want the one-liners would be > insulted by the level of answer, and people would start complaining about > seeing extended discussion of the same simple problem. Questions does not seem to be too bad about complaints concerning extended discussion on simple things. It does no go to the level of some newsgroups, where a relativly new person asks a simple question and the get "Read the FAQ" back as a response. > But most of the time the newbies treat themselves badly in that environment; > their behaviour is inappropriate to such a list. They do not know, or are > two stressed out to care, how to present a well formed question while > adhering to the conventions of using a mailing list. One thing I'd like to > see is a list where behaviour doesn't have to matter so much and can be > addressed *after* the more pressing problems. Been there done that, I also admit I am new to posting messages to a somewhat widely distributed mailing list and am constantly worried about looking stupid. I have often started to post questions then turn around work more and either figure out the problem or just give up. (Like that $%&* soundcard : ) ) > Another aspect of inappropriate newbie behaviour is their preparedness to > blame themselves whether or not that is warranted, and then toggle into > defensive mode when made to feel small. Outcomes include people living with > problems rather than asking for help, giving up FreeBSD because they think > it's too hard, and sticking with FreeBSD when it's clearly too hard for them. > > > > At the moment, I have concerns about the overlap between -questions > > and -hackers (see http://www.lemis.com/questions.html). A newbies > > list would just compound the problem. Again, that technical overlap might cause some intimidation towards some newbies. > I newbies list would have nothing to do with the confusion between > -questions and -hackers. In fact a newbies list might have little in common > with, and little impact on -questions. I'm thinking of something for the > people who don't participate in-questions, and those who you wish wouldn't. > > > > On the other hand, I can't really see much advantage from a newbies > > list. > > You're not meant to :-) > > > Maybe you should present more arguments. > > When you tell me what's wrong with these ones. > James To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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