[Wolves] NIS

[Adam Sweet]

--- Andy Smith <andy at lug.org.uk> wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 04:27:02PM +0000, David
> Morley wrote:
> 
> I don't think I can cope with people who get their
> underwear in a
> bunch over:
> 
> > "Ah well, it was bad enough with the HTML, I'm not
> going to go
> > looking into other threads".
> 
> I feel like it is them that need to integrate with
> the real world,
> not the other way around.

Ok, let's not all go crazy here.

First of all, we have learned by experience on this
list that being awkward to someone who asks a
well-intentioned question, albeit misguided in their
approach, gets us nowhere.

Wolves LUG's approach is to encourage people to get
involved with us and try to get them to shake off bad
habits politely. We've had these rows before and
learned from them. I am sure already everyone is
thinking 'here we go again'.

Tearing people to pieces means they will fuck off and
probably not come back. In some cases this has been
good news (no, I'm not talking about Peter Cannon
here!), but in many it's bad. Linux people have a bad
rep for this sort of thing and this is why we take
that approach here. We've been around this circle too
many times.

To put an end to this misery:

1) Brendan, please don't post in HTML, most people see
it as a hateful aberration and we are no different.
Please don't do it.

2) Also please reply to the email you are referring
to. It means that people on mailing lists can tell
what you are on about without having to go and search
to see what you were saying in the first place.

3) Before you do it, please don't top post, it makes
emails impossible to read quickly.
http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html explains why,
even if you don't agree, it is etiquette.

4) Andy, there is no need to take this approach. Your
point is correct, but your approach work sucks. We
appreciate you're presence here and I don't wish cause
you to disappear, but lambasting first-time posters is
a bad tradition. Dave is only doing his job as LUG
Master in trying to ensure a peaceful list.

I would say from the fact that Brendan posts in HTML,
doesn't reply in-thread, requests people contact him
privately using a proprietary protocol and messaging
client and his company hosts using ASP suggests that
he's not a Unix mailing list regular and once his job
is done we won't hear from him again. But then again,
maybe he will see that we are a good bunch of people
and get involved by helping other people out on the
list (sans HTML).

A good read of

http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

and

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html

are good news for anyone new to Linux mailing lists.

If the same mistakes are made repeatedly despite this
discussion then by all means launch the missiles. If
everyone recognises their faults in this thread, then
maybe you, Andy, will stick around, Brendan will post
again in plain text, in-thread, maybe answering
somebody else's question and then we can all go back
to helping one another out peacefully.

Ad - wearing tin helmet

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