Servus Wolfi (u.a.)! That was exactly the reason I left the German list, too. It's nice to see "real" Germans have the same problem. ;-) You said yourself "one should assume that the poster has tried to understand docs and mans" plus the howtos and any other doc. Which is typically what I do when answering people's questions via lists, newsgroups or in person. Even when someone "in the heat of the moment" spells something wrong or uses the wrong term, I make an effort to understand them. I recently spent half an hour talking with someone who kept saying "partition" although they meant filesystem. That didn't stop me from understanding. My situation is the opposite for you, Wolfi. I am an American, but live in Germany, so when I'm talking computers, it is in a foreign language for me. Even though most of the terms are English . ;-) As for the search terms, keywords like "linux genealogy" you end up with only a couple dozen entries, so it is not that hard to go search through them. Using "geneology" gives you one, which is a flag for intelligent people that you might have done something wrong (intelligence does not necessarily mean you can spell). However, I see the response I got as as the same answer as "man cdrecorder". What about about the question "Is anyone aware of a good scanner for Linux?" and the answer is "try 'linux scanner' on google." As for the beautiful Sunday, I just got back from coaching our local little league baseball team. (Yes, baseball in Germany!) Grüß, jimmo Übrigens: "Eighth" statt "Eigth". ;-) On Sunday 03 February 2002 13:06, wolfi wrote:
On Sun, 2002-02-03 at 12:37, James Mohr wrote:
Hi All!
I got a private reply to this and I was just wondering if other people expect more that answers like:
Try a google search on "genealogy linux"
If answers like are acceptable, then 90% of the posts to this list could be answered with "RTFM" or "RTFHT" (Read the F..... HowTo). (...)
Hi James and all,
Well, what should I say ??? :-) OK, as you might know, I am from Germany, and I _tried_ German newsgroups before I finally 'ended up here', and ... there you get a lot of answers like: 'man cdrecord' (I wanted to know what went wrong when I was trying to burn a CD. The solution, after months, which I found myself, was, that my burner was not willing to eat cyan-colored CDs, which could be fixed by a firmware update!! Is this in man cdrecord? I bet it isn't!). Among these RTFM answers there are also others, like 'stupid newbie shut up' - which is even worse IMHO.
So, to come back to topic;-)
First, it could be far worse. See above:-( Second, one should assume that the poster has tried to understand docs and mans, and maybe hasn't got a clue out of them, since these stuff is written from experts for experts and mainly unintelligible for average dudes (ok, that's my opinion. Man pages tell you what which option will do, but not, which option you will need). Third, everyone should check sdb (http://sdb.suse.de and select your language then) and Togan's unofficial FAQs (e.g. on http://susefaq.sourceforge.net ) before posting - maybe it is a standard question (yours, James, of course, is not). Fourth, google is not that bad, but IMHO you need some experience in choosing keywords. So, if one is a talented google searcher, why doesn't this one do a quick search for well-chosen keywords and post his results to the list (or to the original poster)? I mean ... I would do it either this way or not post anything. Fifth, if you are unlucky and do belong to some very peculiar nationality, you will have to express yourself in a foreign language, because in your native tounge you will receive RTFM for 90%:-) Sixth, this list being tolerant and wide open as anything, you will have to ignore some stuff, too, since it's not worth thinking about it. Just mention the tests sometimes being fired around. Seventh, rather enjoy the beautiful sunday than take part in great online debates:-)
Cheers .... Wolfi ============================================= mailto:wolfi_z@yahoo.com
Eigth: I don't know anything about your original problem:-))
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-- --------------------------------------- "Science has promised man power...But, as so often happens when people are seduced by promises of power, the price is servitude and impotence. Power is nothing if it is not the power to choose." Joseph Weizenbaum of MIT said in reference to Computers. --------------------------------------- The Great Linux-NT Debate: http://www.jimmo.com/Linux-NT_Debate/index.html