Mike Dewhirst wrote:
Here is an axample of top-posting. So sue me :)
The fact is that we should be pleased this list attracts people who don't know the correct etiquette. IT MEANS (please forgive my shouting) NON-SAVVY PEOPLE ARE USING (trying to use) SuSE! This has been said many times before.
Sorry, but I disagree with the logic of your argument :-) . There are 2 aspects here: (1) attracting and retaining new SuSE users to this forum, and (2) whether (new) people who come here are posting-etiquette aware. People who come here should already be posting-etiquette aware and if they are not then it does not mean that they are simply new SuSE users. I was once a "newbie" to this forum but I didn't come here ignorant of how to or how not to post/reply to messages in mail lists or newsgroups. There are people, of course, who either don't know what the posting-etiquette is or who know but deliberately ignore it because they are simply one of the anti-social breed of people. But this does not mean, as you are suggesting, that they are "non-savvy people .. using.. SuSE". As far as I know, this forum is no different to any other well run, intelligent, forum where the normal posting-etiquette is known and observed by the participants. Nevertheless, I take your point about having a set of guidelines which one could point a "newbie" at if, and when, they should deviate too far from posting-etiquette. Unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world and there will always be someone who will not adhere to requested standard of behaviour - take your opening sentence for example - so all one can hope for when arriving at a set of guidelines is that most people will follow them but if they don't then there is no way that one could truly enforce them. The one real thing going for this forum (and a few others that I subscribe to associated with SuSE generally) is that there don't appear to be any spotty-faced teenagers participating who cannot spell nor put two words together in a sentence and whose problems and hardware etc are always of the fornicating kind or of some other bodily function.
Sure we need a protocol. Someone ought to write one and post it wherever people sign up for this list. Then it would be easy to refer a hijacker or otherwise uneducated beginner to that well written and politely encouraging post.
I think it is important to help newbies rather than repel them. If you (oldies) want to depend on SuSE indefinitely it must grow in popularity.
Things never stay the same. SuSE's popularity can either grow or shrink. If it shrinks I have to switch my allegiance to another distro which I can rely on to retain critical mass and continue indefinitely.
Mail rage is repulsive.
Mike
Dana J. Laude wrote:
On Wed, 2006-08-09 at 20:31 -0700, jdow wrote:
Seems to me you men are hijacking a thread yourself. You are very bad men. Retire your selves to a corner and sit there for an hour contemplating your sin.
{^_-} Joanne, being 1) obnoxious, 2) silly, or 3) observant.
Seems to me that top quoting isn't good either. WTF, this list was not so unclued before. Seriously though, a few of the latest threads have been pretty lame. (unsubscribe from SLE as an example)
Let's just get back to support issues / questions and get along. (putting on flame suit) ;)
Dana
Cheers. -- This computer is environment-friendly and is running on OpenSuSE 10.1