[Sussex] List Etiquette [Was: df - what's going on?]

[Steven Dobson]

Niall



On Sun, 2006-04-16 at 19:21 +0100, Niall Parker wrote:
> It's not about eggshell feelings. The guy appears on the list, makes a 
> genuine query, with sufficient technical data to back up his query, and 
> gets a spanking with no help from anyone. A more tactful response would 
> be to answer his query (isn't that what this list is for?) and append an 
> admonishment onto the end. Instead, he gets a slap for merely asking a 
> question- that's how he will have seen it.

But what about manners?  If we were at a moot and I was talking with
someone else and Rob (or you or anyone else) butted in to that
conversation to ask their own, unrelated, question I would consider that
extreamly bad manners.  While just changing the subject in a reply is
not as bad as the spoken interruption I still consider it poor manners.

> Unless I'm mistaken, this isn't a court of law. It's a community for 
> helping other people, ultimately. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

I agree with you, this isn't a court of law.  But (and here you can
correct me if I am wrong) isn't law just the formallisation by a state
or states (for example England and Wales) the way in which it imposes
good behaviour on the members of that state?

> Responding to people's genuine queries with pedantic responses, without 
> actually helping them merely serves to propagate the myth that techies 
> are unapproachable, unfriendly and unhelpful. Aren't we all here to try 
> to push Linux? I don't think putting people's backs up is the way to go 
> about it. It *is* a loss- it's one more person who's going to be fed up 
> with techies. And to have the moderator of this list say "I don't feel 
> any loss" is not good either- and by saying "expect to get your wrists 
> slapped on this list" you've just intimidated all the lurkers, 
> especially those who are not as knowledgeable, who will now think twice 
> before asking questions. We also have someone who *was* on the list, who 
> will now be saying "SLUG- what a bunch of w*****s"; instead of "SLUG- 
> really helpful bunch- they answered my query *and* explained some 
> netiquette I didn't know about".

Okay, first I suppose that that there _is_ a loss, but I don't feel any
loss. I do feel that to reply to him as you suggested would be to reward
bad behavour.  Why should I do that?  No one is paying me for my time to
write a reply, no one is paying me for the years I spent building up my
knowledge.  So if you want me to respond, then you *better* ask the
question is a way that doesn't make me want to ignore you.

I am not moderator of the SLUG list.  No one is monerator of the list.
It has a policy of just dropping non-member posts (because the spamming
of it became just to much to cope with - and that policy change was
discussed on this list, IIRC, before it was made), and there is a spam
filter.  As it happened Rob's post did get trapped by the spam filter
and as list administrator I approved the post.

I replied to Rob as just any other member.  The Linux community is self
policing, and I feel that SLUG should be self policing too.  If
someone's postings carry more weight than others it is only because they
have built standing in the eyes of others.

> The one big failing that I perceive in Linux is not the OS, the apps, 
> the drivers, install routines- it's parts of the community, who 
> sometimes resemble a kind of technological Taleban.

"[T]echnological Teleban" now there is a phrase designed to provoke an
emotional response!  I also think the those that use phrases like that
tend to belittle their own arguments.

> Surely gentle evangelism would be better than ranting pedantry?

Rant! Rant!  What rant?

There were three pharagraphs in my post.  The first, a single sentence,
was a bad attempt at a little humour - how can there be physical contact
(a slap on the wrist) in an email?

The start of the second paragraph is a request (I even used the word
"please") not to continue with said bad behavour.  The rest of the post
was an explanation of why not to do it.  That is hardly a rant.

And I don't think that asking anyone to conform to the rules and
standards that have been developed over time, and are well documentent
on the web, to be the act of a pedant.  If you were to come to a Moot I
would expect a certain level of social behavour, and I whould guess that
the others at the Moot would too.

Steve