On Friday 23 November 2001 04:37, Gary Turner wrote: > I use Agent Forte on an M$ machine. My Linux box is not online yet > because I don't yet have a second NIC, nor do I understand IP masking > or a lot of other things. I have asked questions recently in this > forum. They were, I believe, 'decent.' I received courteous, > helpful, and timely responses. I have even been able to post the > occasional answer to other's queries, all from an M$ machine. > > Other than BASIC and ASM stuff on TRS-80s a long time ago, I've been > a Win3/9x appliance operator. I chose Debian for my Linux distr > because it is down and dirty and not hidden by a UI that would slow > the learning process. But choosing Debian did not suddenly make me > proficient in the argot, nor did it steep me in the Unix/Linux > culture. Often it's not that I don't RTFM, but that I don't know > which FM to effingR.
I've been using this list for three months now and one good sign I've noticed is the amount of Three Message Threads (or TMTs to coin a TLA;) This is where someone posts a query, the second message gives an answer and the third message is the original inquirer saying 'Thanks very much.' I've been the grateful beneficiary on at least a couple of occasions where I've been stuck in one of those frustrating and annoying 'I know one can do this but where exactly do I start looking ..." situations. Maybe the relative concentration of TMTs would be good measure of the health of a list. The only trouble with measuring them, of course, is how does one cope with four, five and more TMTs where more than one person weighs in with a similar reply? Nigel -- Nigel Pauli - I.T. Manager St. John's School, Northwood, U.K. http://www.st-johns.org.uk/
