David T-G [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote:
> It seems that mutt is cresting one of those points of explosive growth
> where we see a massive influx of clueless newbies -- perhaps, due to
> the easy availability of Linux and even other more mainstream *NIX
> distributions, so new that they don't even know how things work in The
> Right World (tm) -- and have to deal with a bunch of questions that seem
> pretty darned dumb even when we look back to the days when we were young
> and lusers ourselves.
>
> Unfortunately, this translates directly into more traffic on the mailing
> lists that is of fairly low interest to at least the Original Ones; after
> all, who wants to keep telling people why mutt doesn't talk on port 25 or
> how to configure pgp or why color works with vim but not mutt or even how
> to group reply. Note that I'm guilty, in recent times, of some of these
> questions myself; I'd like to think that I've done my homework and found
> the documentation confusing or lacking, but it's more probable that I
> just didn't do my homework, either. The problem, though, is that some of
> the Original Ones are getting tired of this crap and are unsubscribing or
> strongly contemplating it. I can hardly blame them; I saw the same
> decline on the sun-managers list a couple of years ago, and went that
> route myself.
I'm glad someone else is seeing this the same way I am. I'd honestly be
off this list long ago except that I'm committed to maintaining the web
page and want to make sure I catch patches/etc. to add there. But I spend
far too much time deleting stuff I just don't have time to keep up with
anymore, which means I probably still miss some things I should be adding.
And I'm hardly one of the "Original Ones". I'd wonder how many of them are
even left.
This list is transitioning, though, from a -users list to a -newbie list,
where a few masochistic^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdedicated types answer reams
of the same simple, RTFM newbie questions over and over until they burn
out, to be replaced with a new bunch of masochists. I know the pattern
well enough, I've been that masochist enough times myself.
I'd almost suggest a mutt-newbie list, but I hesitate to push anything
that'll encourage the idea that mutt is a general purpose client. It
really isn't, and I don't think it should be. Different skill levels have
different needs -- there's nothing wrong with that. Of course, the dearth
of MUAs that don't just suck or make up their own standards as they go
makes Mutt one of the only options for people who just want a decent cli
client with PGP support, regardless of their "expert" level.
Anyway, I'm in no position to speak authoritatively or anything, either --
I just don't want to see this list become so much noise that it stops being
worth anything as a serious user list.
> It seems to me, though I certainly speak not from any position of
> authority, that we as the mutt community need to come up with some Quick
> Start and "mutt for the impatient" docs, perhaps along the lines of the
> proposed "mutt for Attorneys" item mentioned recently, to head off some
> of the questions but also to come up with some more proactive methods
> of getting this information out. Without going into a drawn-out call
> for votes or anything silly like that, what does anyone think about
>
> - asking, most very humbly, the doc writers to spend some time on the
> FAQ or Quick Start, even at the expense of the full documentation,
> just to round it out and provide something to throw at requesters
The only issue with this is that as far as I'm aware there is no such
entity as "the doc writers". People that add or change things include doc
patches. If they don't, or the docs they give aren't very good, someone
else might work on fixing them, if they have time. Regardless, the people
who answer the myriad of questions on this list honestly probably
understand better than the developers what needs attention. You're all
talking about writing this 'quick start' stuff -- do it. Give me a URL,
and I'll add it to the web page. If it's kept current and of good quality
I'll link it alongside the FAQ and manual on the index page.
Really to me it sounds like you're all wanting to basically write an
alternate FAQ, which sounds fine to me -- the existing one seems somewhat
limited and not entirely current. I at least don't recommend people to it
often for general questions that remain after reading the manual and man
page, and that's really what a FAQ should be for, isn't it? There are
plenty of FAQs that are not in the FAQ, which means they come up on the
list again and again.
> - better promoting the searchable archives and perhaps redesigning the
> main mutt page to first send folks to answers
We need archives that don't suck. Egroups sucks. Mail-archive is better,
but pretty basic. Anyone who wants to start a list archive that sucks
less, give me a URL so I can link it.
Of course any of this assumes people will RTFM/FAQ/archives at all instead
of expecting the list to do it for them. And honestly, people are going to
keep asking the list instead of the manual as long as it gets them answers.
Sometimes a RTFM response, while it may seem rude, can be the best answer
you can give someone because it makes them learn something on their own,
while leaving the list members free to deal with other things, like
improving the manual and dealing with more complicated questions. Teach a
man to fish and all that crap.
--
Jeremy Blosser | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://jblosser.firinn.org/
-----------------+-------------------------+------------------------------
the crises posed a question / just beneath the skin
the virtue in my veins replied / that quitters never win
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