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Date:      Tue, 17 Oct 2000 06:20:41 +1000
From:      Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au>
To:        "Cribbins, Jason" <Jason.Cribbins@qwest.com>
Cc:        freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Newbies web page [was: -newbies]
Message-ID:  <20001017062038.K2537@welearn.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <9D35FA2F8EFCD111BA5A00805FA75E87084645FF@fdntx001>; from Cribbins, Jason on Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 10:45:28AM -0400
References:  <9D35FA2F8EFCD111BA5A00805FA75E87084645FF@fdntx001>

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On Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 10:45:28AM -0400, Cribbins, Jason wrote:
> I may be mistaken but I believe about 2 years ago you were the one who
> replied to a question I posted to -questions and told me that my question
> was of a beginner question which should be posted to -newbies.  You stated
> -questions was for experienced users with very technical questions (not
> exact quote...was long time ago but that's what I took from the message).

I think everyone here would vouch for the fact that I have never, and
would never have encouraged beginner questions in freebsd-newbies :-)
There must be some misunderstanding, or maybe there was a misguided
person trying to "help" you at the time.

I suspect some people confuse it with linux-newbies, which when I saw
it was a lively place for linux newbies to misinform each other with
impunity. Our mailing lists are quite different, and the free support
offered (in freebsd-questions) is more centralised and reliable,
something we are very proud of and try to maintain.

People make mistakes, newbies make lots of them. Here, that's OK. We
have seen incidents of a non-newbie considering himself above the
newbies list charter and trying to encourage others to ignore it. That
was quickly stopped, because wilfully disobeying list charters can
cause people to be banned from lists, if it is serious enough to
warrant it.

> What exactly is the purpose of -newbies then.  Is it different then it was
> back when I started out? or is it the same and I was
> misdirected/misunderstood the list usage.

It has always been a place for non-technical newbie chatter for which
there is no other FreeBSD list where it would be tolerated, and to
learn things like:
- Don't post to a FreeBSD mailing list until you've read its charter
- All support questions/answers can, and should, go to freebsd-questions
- As a newbie your first stop should be http://www.freebsd.org/newbies.html

If you subscribe to freebsd-newbies, you'll be informed of the basics
automatically when your subscription is processed, and then you'll
get the full information delivered right to your desk every Saturday!

People who simply neglected to read the weekly FAK would be unlikely to
read things like man pages or the handbook either, maybe not even any
replies they got from freebsd-questions. It is often remarked that their
problems are of a kind that could not be addressed within the FreeBSD
community... but I am willing to help anyone who finds visual
impairment a barrier to accessing technical support on our lists or
web site.

In your case, Jason, somehow you became misled and that is unfortunate.
I hope you feel more comfortable now that it has been clarified.

-- 

Regards,
        -*Sue*-
 
 


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