Hi Barry, We're not all the same here. There are different people on this list, like everywhere: Some are strange guys that I simply ignore, many others here helped me a lot.
I find it a bit boring here sometimes, that's true: Our sense of humour might be a bit underdeveloped here, and we have here some very few guys who, as it seems, do not like it very much if people make jokes on linux and those using this OS: I simply ignore these people, and I'll be making my stupid jokes on me, linux, its users and the rest of the world like I always did ... :) Another important point: For some of us --and I'm one of them -- English is not the primary language: That's perhaps why the wording of our mails sometimes appears to be very terse and "frozen" -- might be very well it's not much fun to read our mails ... On Tue, 2003-12-02 at 23:14, Barry Hawkins wrote: > To the list at large, > I have been working on getting a Debian install up on my system for ~ > 2 weeks now, and I find myself dreading when I have to post a question, > because getting an answer on these lists can be pretty daunting. When > you do get an answer, it is often a sparse reply indicating "you're not > doing it right" or "you're using the wrong thing". Well - yeah, I > guess so, or I wouldn't be having the problems I am having. > Seriously, folks, when you have new folks coming to a list, it's > because they are deciding to give it a go with the Linux distro you > favor. It's a good thing. And of the newbie posts I have seen on > here, I have yet to come across one of those arm-flailing things like > you see on Red Hat, PHP, or MySQL lists like "HELP! my l334 skillz > lack!!!!!". I know that sort of thing is _way_ annoying. > I would like to thank Harvey Ussery and point to one of his recent > posts, "Re: About SPAM.." on December 2, 2003 as a great example of not > alienating new folks. It's not a fault of Bart Koppe's, the original > poster, that the receipt of SPAM bothers him. Hell, it bothers me, > too. I accidentally replied to a post this weekend with my new, > private email address that I had just changed - it's not even > subscribed to the list. Bam, two hours later my Sven spam has doubled. > Responses like "10-15 mails a day is at the low end" and "That's past > now; you have got to get yourself a new one if you want to get rid of > the spam mails" only alienate people. Why? These sentences are the *author's* opinion. What he was writing was *his* solution to the problem: He didn't write he'd be the Linux god, and that you'd have to follow him in order to get saved .... BTW: Joe Malik, who wrote the quoted above, is definitely a person, who helped me a lot: He put a lot of time in his emails to me explaining how to get my mplayer straight. So, let us please know if we talk rubbish ... it will definitely help. Or that's at least what I'm hoping for .... :) And allow us (I'd bet you will ... ) to make mistakes .. we'll make them until our last breath. I'm not keen on making mistakes, but what chances do we have ... :) Hoping to get you back here again .. :) Best Regards, Wolfgang -- Profile, Links: http://profiles.yahoo.com/wolfgangpfeiffer
