[Sussex] Thoughts On Contrubuting to the Community

[Steve Dobbo Dobson]

Nic

On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 06:53:04PM +0100, Nic James Ferrier wrote:
> Steve Dobbo Dobson <steve at dobson.org> writes:
> 
> > The people I'm trying to get thinking are those that ask questions but never
> > post answers.  They take without giving, as it takes time for people like you
> > or me to answer their queries, so they do cost the community.  That is against
> > the spirit of the GPL if not the letter.  My hope is to encourage them to 
> > reply to this thread, to get them started, because the more people that 
> > contribute to the community the richer we all are.  A point I believe you
> > agree with.
> 
> I don't agree with that.
> 
> I think questioners do add value because we've answered that question
> and probably 50 people will look at it and never have to ask it.
> 
> When I run programming projects I'm extreemly happy to have people ask
> questions on mailing lists and not do anything else. FAQs are built
> out of the questions people ask.

Big oops!  I completely missed that side of question asking.  I withdraw
completely my object to them and now consider them a valued member of our
community.

(I know I'd learn something from this.)

However, if you've answered their question then they now know more, and I
would like to get them posting that knowledge.  That way they may beat
you into providing an answer and you then get to spend more of your time
doing things that you can do that they can't.  That's of more value to
to the community.

> > I may have influence, I may have respect.  But if I do I only have them
> > because others have given them to me, I certainly have no power.  I can
> > lead but everyone else is free not to follow.
> 
> Of course you have power. Not in a formal sense maybe but you have
> power because of who you are.

I think this is a semantic argument on the difference between power and
influence.  I don't want to go down that route - pointless to what I'm 
trying with this thread.

> But those are unreasonable objections. I didn't like your tone because
> I found it hectoring and I hate that.
> 
> But richie, at least, hates my tone. So live and learn, eh?

As I said, there is always someone...

> >> I guess I just don't like that sort of evangelism.
> >
> > How many times must I say sorry?  But different approaches work for
> > different people.  This is one of my attempts.  I'll judge how successful
> > it is at the next moot.
> 
> I wasn't asking you to say "sorry".

Then I can only think it was to try and stop me doing it again.  But as I've
said I'd rather offend some and get something out of this than do nothing
and get nothing.

Steve
-- 
                              Steve "Dobbo" Dobson
                                steve at dobson.org
                               SussexLUG Master
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOFH excuse #235:

The new frame relay network hasn't bedded down the software loop transmitter yet.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/sussex/attachments/20070330/53a7114f/attachment.pgp