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Date:      Sat, 9 Oct 1999 21:10:15 -0700
From:      "Paul M. Lambert" <plambert@magiclemurs.com>
To:        stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Roasting Newbies
Message-ID:  <19991009211015.A736@pinky.magiclemurs.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910100855200.37470-100000@enya.clari.net.au>
References:  <199910091303.JAA33525@blackhelicopters.org> <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910100855200.37470-100000@enya.clari.net.au>

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Perhaps something like what is used in the perl newsgroups: a bot that
autoresponds the first time an address sends a message, to say, "Here's
a list of good places to look for answers."

It's a little more in-your-face, but being automated, a little harder
to argue with.  (For example, it's easy to ignore an email reply to the
bot that deserves to be ignored without making it seem like such a personal
judgement).

It would be even better if it could be placed _between_ users and the
mailing list, just like the perl bot is in comp.lang.perl.misc, so that
a message sent to the list isn't posted until the sender replies to the
automated short FAQ and so forth first.

These are, of course, ideas.  The purpose here is brainstorming.

--plambert

On Sun, 10 Oct 1999, Daniel O'Callaghan wrote:

> 
> On Sat, 9 Oct 1999, Michael Lucas wrote:
> 
> > I don't think it's that we're actively hostile to newbies.  We're just
> > sick of answering the same questions over and over again.
> > 
> > To be honest, I don't want developers wasting their time answering
> > questions about the OS.  I want them coding.  
> 
> One solution I have found to be effective in at least reducing the
> time taken to respond to poorly detailed questions, and also leads to
> reduced blood pressure changes and a less emotional response, is to have a
> canned response text file which can be e-mailed back to the poster.
> 
> Something like...
> 
>   Hi, Welcome to FreeBSD, we're glad you have made the choice to use
>   it as your operating system.  We understand that problems arise from
>   time to time, and the mailling lists are where to get answers.
>   Often, however, the answers are already available on the FreeBSD
>   web site or in the man pages, as others may have struck your problem
>   already.
>   Have you looked in the Handbook?  Man pages? Mailling list archives?
>   You can search all of these at <http://www.freebsd.org/search.html>;
> 
>   If you *have* searched for the answers already, please e-mail the
>   appropriate mailling list with full details of your problem.  Don't
>   forget to include:
>   * FreeBSD version you are running (uname -a)
>   * Make, model of the hardware you are having a problem with (if
>     hardware)
>   etc,etc,etc
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Danny
> 
> 
> 
> 
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