Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 22:32:02 +1100 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: Studded <Studded@dal.net> Cc: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: doc "renovation" project volunteer Message-ID: <19980320223201.63694@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <35118D5A.6CA23B79@dal.net>; from Studded on Thu, Mar 19, 1998 at 01:25:46PM -0800 References: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980318181025.10998A-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu> <Pine.BSF.3.95q.980318223140.316G-100000@barnowl.roost.net> <19980319163714.47520@welearn.com.au> <3510DD9B.1591459B@dal.net> <19980319212405.55520@welearn.com.au> <35118D5A.6CA23B79@dal.net>
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On Thu, Mar 19, 1998 at 01:25:46PM -0800, Studded wrote:
> Errrr... no. At least for me if I have something to say to the newbies
> list about docs I will say it directly to them and ask them to respond
> directly to me, or to this list as appropriate.
This threat is unwelcome. If you are saying that you intend to make this as
difficult as you possibly can, to the point of acting wilfully against the
purposes of a mailing list, then I suggest you have picked the wrong person,
the wrong list, and the wrong day. You did your best to stop the newbies
from having their own list, and now you want to make use of them for your
own convenience at the risk of destroying their enclave.
Jump in as you plan and you will only prove their suspicion, that newbies
will never be granted a place free from patronising scrutiny, somewhere they
can relax and learn to be self-sufficient and start helping each other to
depend on the resources you want to give them, instead of depending on you.
If you sit back and wait a little while, you'll see that a lot of good can
and will be done for the documentation project if and only if you stop
trying to tell me and everyone else what they want. Keep going the way you
are and you'll obtain some short-term advantage by stealth but spoil every
chance for long-term benefit to everyone. We all have an interest in this
working out, even you.
Before you can even contemplate writing well for an audience, you have to
know and understand them. Give them a chance to speak freely, listen, and
learn, show genuine respect for who and what they are, and give them a
chance to be what they are on their own terms. Find out what they *can* do
and *will* do on their own, and gradually build from there. Or go do some
coding or something that doesn't hurt people.
You've got a so much else to offer, I don't understand why you want to spoil
what others are trying to do for themselves when they don't need your help.
> > Because people like you will go in and talk to them the way you have talked
> > to me in the past. That is not the best way to obtain cooperation, as you
> > must have discovered by now. If newbies can't have a space that is their
> > own, where they don't have to suffer being someone's underling,
>
> Where did you get the idea that I want to make the people on -newbies
> underlings?
I never said you want to, but you know so much it's automatic. And I don't
think you and a couple of others realise how abrasive and overbearing you
come across at times. It's taken me two miserable years to have the courage
to say Doug, you make me feel like giving up when you talk like that. You
make me feel afraid to admit when I can't understand some manual, or just
pretend I've lost interest to save face. I'm only standing up to you now
because I feel like you've pushed me into a corner, there's no other options
left, and nothing more to lose. We can't wait two years for the others to
start feeling happy about learning by their own steam.
In the long term we cannot keep producing documentation that is designed for
dependent learners. At the moment, they are the only kind we're producing
because they are the only kind that we love to hate to accommodate. I'm
willing to fight tooth and nail for that to change, but without your
bombastic interference it wouldn't be a fight at all. It's what newbies want
now and long term it's what everyone wants, even you Doug. Think about it.
> Are you actually telling me that I can listen on -newbies but you don't
> want me to talk?
Yes indeed I am, the same as we newbies do on -hackers, -chat, -ports...
Unless you'd like the whole system to be changed immediately.
We're talking about having newbies working together learning how to learn
independently, using documentation, encouraging each other to enjoy doing
so, in a non-threatening environment of their own, away from perceived risk
of scrutiny and evaluation. If no-one else believes that this is a serious
threat to the aims of the documentation project, I suggest we continue this
conversation privately.
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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