[Lincs] List Politics (Allows / Banned topics)

[James Taylor]

Disclaimer. This post contains information about me I don't want to 
bring up ever again. I very rarely admit I have faults, let alone 
discuss them, but I want to promote the idea that some people need help, 
and I have been one of them in the past. Oh ok, Fine, I still am, there 
you go, I said it now.

> Who cares about peoples abilities, there are few enough of us running 
> Linux to form a normal LUG

I would like to suggest that guidelines to posting on LLUG lists are on 
the website that is being made. Coming from ALUG there are actually two 
lists, Main and Social (although Social doesn't get the use it should, 
and some things are posted on Main which should really be on Social, and 
people are politly asked to move the thread to the other list).

The other thing to remember about a LUG is that targeting it for all 
levels is very difficult - and also its very easy to make assumptions 
about people based on knowledge of one of their specialisations - I know 
a very good programmer, one of the best programmers I know, who's 
written a lot of Windows and Linux based code in many languages, but 
he's a programmer at heart and doesn't know much about Linux (that is 
he's not an administrator, doesn't care about package management or 
permissions, he wants to get on with writing code). At the other end, I 
know countless Systems Administrators who can't program for anything, 
and each of them have very specialised areas of knowledge about various 
packages - some swear by a package, others swear about the same package.

And I've seen programmers who arn't very good at maths, who are complete 
genius about user interface design and wizard creation and knowing how 
to make usable software which protects the data integrety from dodgy 
users, and I've seen programmers who make academic simulations and 
analysis tools for which you need a degree to use in the first place, 
who don't care about looking for dodgy user input because its only ever 
used by four people who are trained in using it.

The point is this - someone can be very accomplished, knowledgeable and 
"leet" at one thing, and still be a complete "noob" needing help and 
guidance at another. Many open source applications, for all their good 
karma points for being Free Software sometimes are very lacking in user 
documentation, or have old or incomplete installation documentation. 
Some communities are very closed to new-comers, and project leads are 
very self-opinionated arrogant argumentative people (I know, I am all of 
those three), all of which can frighten away people from doing things.

So, if your reading this thinking Oh I have problems, I want to know 
answers to, but Im too scared to post because I don't want to be seen to 
be an idiot and be flamed for thinking whatever it is that I think, Post 
the question, because I can guarantee theres at least one other person 
on the list who might not be a poster but a reader who will go "oh yeah, 
I want to know that, I'll see what the response is". And sure, sometimes 
there isnt a reply, because sometimes this stuff is too new, or to 
specialised.

Very Brief About me in Linux (a.k.a. Why I'm a noob whos been and done 
things and not scared to ask questions)

In 1998/1999/2000 I played with Linux badly.
In 2001 I met MJR who made me use Debian before deserting me with 
servers to look after at Uni (I played with Linux a bit better)
In 2002 I started running my own personal server Debian
In 2003 I used debian desktop (until April 2006 when I swapped back to 
Windows desktop for work reasons)
in 2005 I lost a server to a root kit because my cacti application had a 
security hole and the patch wasn't in my source list at that point in time.

Right now I have one Fedora Server, one Debian server and one Windows 
server, hosting a whole heap of random stuff, and am running desktop in 
Windows XP and Windows Vista.

I've been a programmer professionally and am currently Head of 
Development for a small telecoms company in South Peterborough (but live 
in Lincolnshire), I write a heck of a lot of high level language code 
these days (where as previously, I wrote an aweful lot of low level 
assembler). Im supposedly a trained electrician - I know a lot about 
mobile phones internally and I'm an Ham. I've broken every single 
computer I've ever owned, usually more then once, and every time worse 
then the last time (*).

and I *dont* *ever* *ever* do email configuration (And I only do DNS 
configuration when  I can't convince someone else to do it). (and i dont 
compile kernels). Please note, i CAN do any of those. I don't. You see, 
Lifes too short.

JT

p.s. did I mention that I don't do email configuration, look, I once 
went a year without personal email because I refused to configure it.
p.p.s. did you know that Knuth dosn't do email either? See great minds 
think alike.
p.p.p.s. Knuth is my homeboy.

* notable exception is that I've acquired a machine on Friday. It hasn't 
been broken yet. I say yet, I've only had six days, however to counter 
ballance that one, the machine given to me on my first day at my 
programming job 1) didnt have the cd drive plugged in and 2) didnt have 
the right kernel modules for its network card (or rather , it did when 
it was running redhat but when I installed debian it didn't). Notably, 
on my third day at that job, I truncated the customer database.