On Thursday, Jun 26, 2003, at 14:03 US/Central, Mike Hicks wrote: > Anyway, this comes up from time to time. People have suggested in the > past that the mailing list be divided up to more specifically target > newbies, system administrators, and other sub-groups. However, this > idea is generally rejected because that would mean that people who have > wide interests would have to subscribe to a number of lists, rather > than > just one. Also, it would mean that people with who fall into the "Guru" category would hang out in the "Guru" list and not pay attention to the "Newbie" list. Not all "Gurus" would do this, but many would. Overall the Guru-to-n00b ratio would drop a bit, resulting in less informed answers to some questions. > However, I think the main difficulty new members of the mailing list > come across is the fact that their problems aren't "sexy" enough. This > is something that cuts across whole swaths of the worldwide open source > community. Lots of smart people like to work on things they enjoy, but > certain subjects are just boring to them. The phrasing of the question / problem into statements like the following often nets flame or just being ignored. "My Network doesn't work, please help" "I can't login to my samba server from a win98 box. TIA" Getting on a list with people who feel strongly about something and saying "The thing u feel strongly about sucks, now help me" also is a bad idea. > > Additionally, many members of this list are system administrators or > technical support personnel, and I'm sure they get sick of hearing the > same problems all of the time. Of course, some people are just > assholes, or got stuck in asshole-for-a-day mode. > > A few things to remember: > > 1. Without a good support infrastructure (like in a corporate > environment), Linux requires you to be willing to learn. This is true > of any operating system, of course, but it's more apparent to people > who > grew up on Windows. > > 2. Google is your friend. Learn to love keywords. Also, Linux has a > lot of documentation available on the system (`man man', or look in > /usr/share/doc/...) > > 3. Certain areas of Linux have their own vast communities. Laptops, > for > instance, have the wonderful resource of http://www.linux-laptop.net/ > > -- > _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ ___ _ _ __ A clear conscience is > / \/ \(_)| ' // ._\ / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__ usually the sign of a bad > \_||_/|_||_|_\\___/ \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __) memory. > [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088 at tc.umn.edu ] > <signature.asc> -- Ben Lutgens System Administrator, Server Wizard, Email Guru US Admins, Inc _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list