ATTN SELF-STYLED LIST POLICE (was RE: Mr. Day)

Bill (William) Triest wtriest at chemistry.ohio-state.edu
Tue Dec 7 04:20:54 UTC 2004


I snipped the discussions since it was long, but essentially it was the 
debate about mailing list etiquette.  I just wanted to pipe in with a 
few thoughts, but its not related to any particular part.

My History:
I left the redhat community because I didn't like the support anymore.  
That was fine by me, I found a community I liked better (gentoo for the 
record) and they were polite and helpful.  In the past few months this 
has gotten a little bit worse, but I still believe its better than the 
redhat/fedora situation.  To me this is fine, linux is about choice, and 
I made a choice.

Since then I found a job (its only a student worker position as I'm a 
college student) where I am essential in charge of a number of redhat 
boxes.  I am working on moving people over to fedora or enterprise as 
they choose.  Thus I joined some of the lists.  I think this community 
hopping has given me some perspective that I would like to throw out 
just as food for thought.

My thoughts:
First of all I would ask that if some one posts inappropriately, please 
answer their question.  Then, at the bottom, say by the way the 
community would appreciate it if you would obey some etiquette rules, 
and provide a link to where they are posted.  If a user has received 
help, then they feel grateful and are more likely to show the respect of 
obeying therequested rules.  There is nothing more annoying then getting 
a bunch of messages about what you did wrong and yet not get an answer 
to your question, epically when you are frustrated.  The negative 
comments only hurt the community.

Second of all, would it be appropriate to see if official forums could 
be devised to replace the mailing lists?   New users should already be 
familiar with a forum system, so I don't see that it would be much 
harder for them.  Yet forums would seem to fix many of these problems.  
If people want to complain about bandwidth, then they can choose not to 
view a thread.  If the message is screened properly, html shouldn't hurt 
it (or only allow bbcode etc).  Signing up for an account is a little 
bit of a hassle, but its really no worse then signing up for a mailing 
list.  With a proper search feature, I think they are just as useful.

I know I'm a semi-outsider, so I should be careful criticizing;  I want 
this community to be the best that it can.  Since these discussions 
never seem to end, maybe its time to take a step to change the way we do 
things.

Thanks,
Bill
Student Worker - Linux
Chemistry Department
The Ohio State University




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