Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 15:00:24 -0800 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com> To: eddy@isi.edu Cc: Ron Echeverri <rone@B1FF.nas.nasa.gov>, mo@uu.net, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: -stable, support and some perspective. Message-ID: <21008.918169224@zippy.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 04 Feb 1999 11:46:58 PST." <14009.61392.46911.33090@kit.isi.edu>
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Oh dear, it's the support silly season again.
We come to this topic at least a dozen times a year, so I'll be more
succinct than usual:
These mailing lists, the various IRC networks, USENET NEWS groups and
assorted webchat pages do not constitute "official" support forums in
the sense that their content is moderated or controlled by any central
authority. Period. Being almost completely unregulated as they are,
complaining about what you see here is basically a completely
pointless exercise unless it's your deliberate intention to create a
thread where 20 other people follow up to tell you how much clue
you're missing to call for regulation in free speach forums like
these.
The mailing lists do, at least, impose certain constraints on the
language one uses or how topical the postings should be and everyone
who has not already done so is encouraged to read the mailing list
charters, which may be found at:
http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/eresources:charters.html
That said, I should also note that the specific cases that Mike
complained about (for some inexplicable reason, since he knows better
than this) are not covered by the charters since we don't have time to
play full-time list cops but simply to make sure that behavior does
not stray so far over the line that people are swearing at or directly
attacking one another. It's all spelled out in the charters and has
been for some time, so check it out.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for seeing reasoned calls for a collective
return to sanity when people are getting out the torches and the
firewood, and Rusty's mail was a good example of that in action. What
there has been too much of lately, however, is general complaining to
the project about things that the project cannot realistically control
(and should not be expected to), like EFNET's IRC channels or people's
general behavior towards newbies on mailing lists, and these
complaints only *generate* far more useless traffic than they prevent.
For as long as these lists are populated by human beings, to say
nothing of human beings in the "engineer" category, you're going to
see people skewering other people over slights both real and imagined.
If that's not something you can handle then I can only point out that
list membership _is_ elective and maybe a short vacation from this
kind of thing in your mailbox is in order if you're ever getting to
the point where a public complaint about it seems to be coming on.
The complaining serves no purpose other than to generate even more
useless traffic. :-(
- Jordan
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