From owner-freebsd-newbies Fri Oct 13 18:43:55 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from heorot.1nova.com (sub24-23.member.dsl-only.net [63.105.24.23]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7DB8F37B503; Fri, 13 Oct 2000 18:43:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: by heorot.1nova.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 6CFE0328E; Thu, 12 Oct 2000 18:07:32 +0000 (GMT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by heorot.1nova.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 49C30328D; Thu, 12 Oct 2000 18:07:32 +0000 (GMT) Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 18:07:32 +0000 (GMT) From: Rick Hamell To: David Johnson Cc: freebs-chat@freebsd.org, freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: -newbies In-Reply-To: <39E7A882.6F1D21D4@acuson.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > > My major problem is that the questions that are being asked in > > newbies, are not newbie questions! Asking about setting up a pccard, or > > NATD, or DNS, or firewall filters are not in my mind newbie-type > > questions. > > What exactly are appropriate questions? There will always be someone on > any list who won't follow the rules, but what about the rest of us? From the -Newbies First Aid Kit, our "FAQ" so to speak: FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.ORG is the place to send all questions about installing, configuring, running and using FreeBSD. All help requests are handled by FreeBSD-Questions, including newbies questions. FreeBSD-Newbies is different. We don't ask for help or answer how-to question. It is a discussion forum for newbies. That is the rules of FreeBSD-newbies... pretty simple. Those are the rules it was allowed to come into creation under. Those rules are NOT being followed today, nor have they been followed for quite some time. > The intricacies of NAT or DNS certainly don't belong here. But what > about installation issues (if you can't get it installed, odds are > you're a newbie)? What programs to use (tcsh or bash)? Etc. If some > questions are allowed but others are not, then there should be some sort > of guidelines as to what is okay. Simple... NO technical questions are allowed at all. What programs to use would be IMHO, on-topic and appropriate. > I'm not trying to be belligerant. I fully understand your points. But I > think -newbies should be more than just "I did something cool with > FreeBSD last night." We are mere beginners with FreeBSD. That's why > we're called newbies. At least give us a chance to learn to walk before > demanding we run with the big boys. Yes, we were all beginners. FreeBSD-questions has been very tolerant over the years to newbies. No matter how basic your question is, if it's worded politely, and you seem to have done basic research, it gets answered. In fact, from what I see... some of the more advanced questions are more likely to not be answered! See the four postings regarding PCMCIA Cards installations/configuration. > > But when was the last time such a question came across? In the > > last year, I believe I've only seen one, maybe two posts that I think are > > ontopic for -newbies. > > Huh? Are you serious! I recall discussions on the merits and > disadvantages of various window managers, tales of triumph and woe, > talks on the documentation situation as it applies to newbies, and of > course the recent magazine discussion. All of these were appropriate > because they were discussed by *newbies* from a *newbie* perspective. > Geez, if we can't even talk about where to find documentation written > for newbies, then go ahead and nuke the list because it's pretty > useless... Ok, I will freely admit there that I mis-spoke there, though some of those topics were cross-posted off into -chat or -questions, right where they were both on topic. I'm trying to bring this to people's attention because a large amount of questions are getting asked in Newbies, and from I can see never get answered. I do not believe that is giving a FreeBSD a very good reputation. We talk about needing to expand, but by having people not realize what -newbies really is for, they're missing a lot more that they have the right to get, if they posted to the correct place. I personally would be willing to see -newbies changed to something like -newbie_issues.. (not -newbie-chat... -chat already serves that purpose, as most -newbie chat issues again, IMHO are not limited to the newbie.) If I had the time I would volunteer to take over from Sue Blake the position of defacto Moderator of -newbies. She did a wonderful job in the begining, but I can not remeber the last non-Newbies First Aid Kit post she's made. Either she also is to busy, no longer feels -newbies is needed by herself or in general, or...? Please Sue if you do read this, I respect you and the pain you went through to get this group created, I simply believe your orginal vision needs a swift kick to get it back where it belongs. Ultimatily, I guess it belongs in postmaster@freebsd.org's hands to make this choice. Does -newbies get a name change, stay the way it is, or get kicked out the door? Rick ******************************************************************* Rick's FreeBSD Web page http://heorot.1nova.com/freebsd Ace Logan's Hardware Guide http://www.shatteredcrystal.net/hardware ***FreeBSD - The Power to Serve! http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message