Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 21:52:20 +1100 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@hub.freebsd.org>, Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Hello from russia! Message-ID: <20010226215220.A17239@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20010221033146.C46F737B401@hub.freebsd.org>; from Jonathan M. Bresler on Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 07:31:46PM -0800 References: <0102211335520A.00803@PhD_1.testname.com.au> <20010221033146.C46F737B401@hub.freebsd.org>
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On Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 07:31:46PM -0800, Jonathan M. Bresler wrote:
> >
> > > >> Support questions should be sent to freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> > > >> (NOT to the newbies list please)
> >
> > This is another problem. What is a "support question"?
That's proved not as hard to work out as you might think.
> > "Technical questions" might be better.
To us, yes. Use that term as in "all technical questions to
freebsd-questions" and all newbies will understand perfectly.
But we can't, because the non-newbies speak a different language.
I wish we could.
> "technical questions" sounds good...those should be sent to
> freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org. i'll add that in the info file.
NOOOO! Jonathan, you and your clever type just don't understand what
"technical" conveys to newbies :-) You're way up there and your
perspective on technicality is nothing like ours. You lot have your own
stickler-precise meaning, and if you use it like that here you will
_communicate_ something entirely different. The opposite, in fact.
What you mean, I think, is that highly complex (to us) technical
developer-kernel-guru type stuff goes to freebsd-hackers. You say
"technical" and we read "like rebooting computers, setting VCRs,
microwave ovens, stuff like that". To most newbies, and to me, any
question like "how do I change my computer's name" or "can I use
a winmodem?" is highly technical! If you don't believe me, go to
your local grocery store, ask the person serving if they regard that
as a "technical question" or not. I dare ya :-)
No use telling me my use of the term is wrong, Jonathan (and Greg too,
I can feel your linguistic perfection rising, put it down :-)), the only
thing that really matters is what you communicate. Unfortunately you
can't get inside our brains and change them before you speak. People
come from non-technical backgrounds, end up in -newbies feeling it's
all very technical, and we haven't got time to reteach English. Some
of us spend all day advising callers to use the _left_ mouse button
and make sure the monitor is turned on, and it's called "technical
support". I'd agree, that's not very technical, but that doesn't
help us to correct the language of newcomers before they blunder.
One of the other contributing factors to misunderstanding -newbies has
been the instruction that technical questions (you meaning deep magic
stuff) should not be sent to -questions (which is much more technical
than my microwave, therefore a technical list, not a social one).
To quote:
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.
Huh??? The first sentence would have been enough. The second
merely confuses. Maybe even "This is the mailing list for
how-to questions about FreeBSD."<EOF> would keep everyone happy.
Newbies who do do absolutely the right thing will read the second
sentence, and say um, OK, I'd better send my technical questions
to -newbies because they're not allowed on -questions. To some of
us that's what it says, even though it is "wrong".
Can you understand how misleading that -questions statement is to
newbies? If you can't, then you must understand why we need a space
where newbies can at least understand each other :-) I've argued blue
in the face over this word for three years, and it seems that nobody is
sufficiently interested in getting the right message across to newbies,
to back down and change the ambiguous wording of the -questions
charter. They just can't see that other perspectives exist,
we're all too far apart here. Indeed, if the "technical" ambiguity
had not existed, we might not have had such a pressing need for -newbies.
If we cannot communicate with visitors and new arrivals in terms
they can correctly interpret, then it looks like we don't want to
communicate with them at all. I don't think that's the case.
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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