I would like to take issue with just about every item listed by
Schlomo Schapiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, without trying to
convert anyone to my religion (-:
> - too much uninteresting mail
Not a separate issue, just a generalization of the following items -
I'll address it below.
> - too many simple help requests as opposed to interesting problems
That may be so, but isn't it a part of what the Linux community is all
about? People ask for help here because it is a reasonable place to
ask for help. We do expect newbies to RTFM before asking here, but
even when they don't, one can simply point to the correct FM - a one
line email will take a few seconds to type, will force the newbie to
RTFM without alienating him/her, and only one person needs to do it at
a time (well, a few may do it simultaneously and independently -
immaterial). I follow a few computer-related newsgroups regularly,
they have a much higher BQ (bullshit quotient if you are not familiar
with the term), and still I see obviously very highly qualified people taking
their time and answering newbie questions patiently and
politely.
OK, so your time is too valuable. The idea of schielding the list from
newbies (by splitting it into a highly technical list and a newbie
one) has been raised, and it has been argued that it won't take a
newbie much time to realize that his question will be more likely to
be answered on the technical one, so the idea was dropped on this
basis. A solution that seems reasonable to me is in the next
paragraph.
> - no time to read all of it
Don't read it all. I suspect I am as busy as anyone on this list, and
probably more so than many (no offence - I know a lot of us are
students, and I also used to be one N years ago, and I can put even
the heaviest course load in prospective). The LINUX-IL mail arrives in
a special folder (all of us are proficient enough in procmail, right)
that I don't have to look at until I feel I have a couple of minutes,
and then I only have to glance over the subjects (and/or the posters'
names) to decide which threads I will read. Think of it as a simple
mental filtering in addition to a software one - a useful skill to
acquire, too. I don't see a problem.
> - don't like SPAM
I don't think it is a problem. A guy trying to sell a chateau made a
mistake and promptly apologized, and the list members started spamming
each other as a result - I just ignored the thread, as described
above. IMHO, LINUX-IL is not a source of spam.
> - "Doesn't touch me what they talk about"
That's the only good reason not to belong.
> That says it all, doesn't it ?
No, not all. At least one thing that is conspicuously left out is the
idea of community, and I, for one, would like to call for support for
the efforts of the Haifa guys (Guy, actually, and Nir, and others),
and Ira to create one (or several).
--
Oleg Goldshmidt | BLOOMBERG L.P. (BFM) | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out
unequally at birth." [F. Scott FitzGerald]
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