Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 09:15:29 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> Cc: "Michael R. Wayne" <wayne@msen.com>, FreeBSD Questions <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: technical lists [was: Install problems with FreeBSD 2.2.7-RELEASE] Message-ID: <19980802091529.N11960@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <19980801215315.37947@welearn.com.au>; from Sue Blake on Sat, Aug 01, 1998 at 09:53:15PM %2B1000 References: <m0z10x7-0003cUC@ilium.troy.msen.com> <19980728134151.K716@freebie.lemis.com> <19980801215315.37947@welearn.com.au>
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On Saturday, 1 August 1998 at 21:53:15 +1000, Sue Blake wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 28, 1998 at 01:41:51PM +0930, Greg Lehey wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 28 July 1998 at 0:01:28 -0400, Michael R. Wayne wrote:
>>>
>>>> Moved to -questions. I see nothing in this message that suggests it's
>>>> a detailed technical discussion.
>>>>
>>>> On Saturday, 25 July 1998 at 5:18:40 -0400, wayne@msen.com wrote:
>>
>>> I felt it was a TECHNICAL problem because any error message like that
>>> should HALT the install process, not cause the machine to reboot giving
>>> no indication that there was a problem.
>
> You two seem to have a shared understanding of the word "technical" which
> is light years away from mine.
I don't see what you think is shared here. Michael was disagreeing
with my interpretation.
> Where I'm coming from, using computers is technical, and mounting a
> floppy disk or copying a file without splattering another one is *very*
> technical. Hooking up the kitchen terminal and talking to it is way over
> the moon unthinkably technical. I thought everyone felt the same, but
> apparently what is or is not technical is subjective.
>
> Whenever discussion of mailing list use refers to "technical", you should
> not be surprised if people without your years of experience to use the word
> as I do, and obligingly send their how-to-login questions to -hackers.
>
> The list charters page warns not to send "how to" questions to "technical
> lists", which clearly includes freebsd-questions. Not sure? Take a
> look.
OK.
FREEBSD-QUESTIONS
User questions
This is the mailing list for questions about FreeBSD. You should
not send "how to" questions to the technical lists unless you
consider the question to be pretty technical.
Sorry, what do you mean? If it's clear, then it excludes
FreeBSD-questions. If you don't agree, then it's obviously not clear.
Elsewhere (at http://www.freebsd.org/support.html), I'm sure you've
read:
When in doubt about what list to post a question to, post to
freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG.
> Yep, most of this stuff is so technical it makes my brain hurt. There is no
> ambiguity here: freebsd-questions is a technical list, so no "how to" :-)
There's a lot of ambiguity:
1. You seem to have changed your definitionn of "technical" without
warning. What do you mean now? What did you mean in this
sentence?
2. You show no plausible derivation of your claim (whatever it might
be).
3. The statement "no \"how to\"" doesn't mean anything to me. What
are you trying to say?
> Good communication does not necessarily follow from linguistic purity, and
> FreeBSD users are no longer exclusively programmers and computer geeks.
> It's time to start using words everyone can understand and avoiding words
> whose meanings rely on shared experience.
Good communication involves a certain understanding of the concepts
involved and the context in which it occurs. If we had to define
every term before we used it, we'd just give up altogether. Sure, we
can run into trouble, but I suspect that nobody has run into as much
trouble with terminology as you claim to have done. When we discover
that the explanation is inadequate, we change it. This should be
nothing new to you.
As you yourself claim (or claimed earlier on in this message), at a
certain level everything about computers is "technical" in the way
you're using the word. This implies that, when talking about
computers, the term "technical" no longer has any value at this level.
Is it surprising, then, that we use it in another sense, which so far
we have assumed to be implicitly understood? In your case, at least,
and possibly in Michael's, this assumption seems to be incorrect.
Maybe we should use another, unambiguous term. How about
"implementation-related"? No, that could include anything which
happens on FreeBSD but not, say, on Microsoft.
How about "related to programming"? No, then we'd get all the "I
compiled my program and now I can't run it, though I can see it"
questions.
How about "hacker related"? No, that's in the title of the mailing
list, and it doesn't stop people.
How about "in-depth technical"? Maybe. What's depth? OK, let's
leave out the "in-depth" and suggest that, in a generally techical
area, "technical" means more technical than "non-technical". But then
we're back to the start.
>> -hackers is less about bugs than about
>> (actively) improving the system by way of code modification.
>
> Wow, is that what technical means to you? Aieeee... no wonder...
No. Where did you get that idea from?
>> Check out http://www.lemis.com/questions.html and let me know if
>> there's anything that could be improved there.
>
> That side of it is quite clear. Great, now I have two sets of information
> (how to ask questions, and the -questions list charter) which convey
> opposite advice about -questions.
Ah. How come you've just noticed this now? Don't tell me that you
haven't read them before. And what's the opposite advice?
> Finding one (the charter) embedded in the other does not do anything
> for my understanding of the lists, nor change the meaning of the old
> familiar term "technical".
Hmm. To quote the FreeBSD-newbies FAK (which you wrote):
Before you post to FreeBSD-questions, please read the guidelines at
http://www.lemis.com/questions.html
Please explain.
It's easy to bitch (as you demonstrate so amply). Having done so, why
don't you now make some suggestions about how to improve the situation?
I don't think your first message was warranted. I certainly don't
think this is the correct forum in which to follow up on this
discussion.
Greg
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