Date: 30 Dec 1999 02:37:36 +0100 From: naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de (Christian Weisgerber) To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Help...dumb question follows :) Message-ID: <84ed10$1f54$1@bigeye.rhein-neckar.de> References: <386A4D56.6C7F8453@ics.com>
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Damian A. Spriggs <damian@ics.com> wrote: > Subject: Help...dumb question follows :) Well, let's answer this in the spirit of Sue Blake's regularly posted "FreeBSD Newbies First Aid Kit", which nobody but me seems to read. The subject line you used is not helpful. This is an important issue since you presumably expect somebody to send you a response. Alas, nobody is payed to do so. They do it on their own time. You really should try to make it as easy for people to help you out as possible, otherwise they might simply refrain from the effort. You don't need to point out that you are asking for help. It suffices to put a (single) question mark at the end to indicate that you are indeed asking a question. That's what question marks are for, after all. "Dumb question follows". That's not helpful either. It doesn't say anything about the question itself. It may not be all that dumb. As a self-confessed newbie you may have misjudged. And you have to ask yourself: Are people likely to bother to read a message--out of the hundreds and thousands that are flooding in--whose subject doesn't say what it's about other than a vague comment that they will probably be disgusted that they have invested the effort if they actually read it? Clearly, this is not a promising strategy. Try to choose a subject line that gives at least a rough indication what aspect of FreeBSD your question is about. Take your time. There are hundreds of people out there who'll decide within a fraction of a second whether they'll bother reading your message. > What is the command to change my current group.. ala newgrp in linux? Now, that's a question to be asked on the freebsd-questions list. And it sure isn't dumb. Note that Mark Shirley's answer was at the very least incomplete and possibly misleading. You will also get such answers by overeager people on freebsd-questions, but chances are you'll additionally get more correct ones, too. -- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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