On 2006-11-04 13:56, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Tony,
On Saturday 04 November 2006 11:48, Tony Alfrey wrote:
Randall R Schulz wrote: <snip>
It's the same old debate: Do you forgive all the crap and nonsense and let the list devolve into drivel or to you ride herd on the newbies in order to instruct them on the way intelligent list interactions are carried on? I'm in the latter camp.
Or one can behave as though we were part of a civilized society, understand that we cannot all be experts on all subjects, and we respond to others in the way we would wish a response were we asking a question.
The point is not about expertise. We all ask questions when our own expertise, be it vast or miniscule, does not supply an answer to the question we have.
The point is that there are intelligent, coherent and respectful ways to ask, answer and follow up on questions. Then there are all the other ways. The other ways must be repudiated. No, these "other ways" must not be repudiated, but they can be corrected. Half the path to getting an answer to a question lies in knowing how to ask the question in the first place...
half? hell, based on my own experience doing physics research, I think it might be a lot higher than that. You cannot expect someone who has little or no experience with the Unix-like environment to know, by any means, how best to ask a *nix-related question. The differences with what they are used to using are simply far too great.