Asking Smart Questions<tm> (was Re: Etiquette (was Re: left justify))

[Bill Campbell]

On Sun, Jun 12, 2005, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
>On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 10:21:10PM -0400, Bob Stockler wrote:
>> Against my principals I'm going to top post for the sake of brevity.
>
>:-)
>
>> I agree with what both Mark and Jeff have said in this thread.
>
>Thank you, Solomon.
>
>> I abhor requests for help or info that do not contain enough info
>> for others to give any help or info.
>> 
>> These I pass on, as we all should (teach 'em a lesson).
>> 
>> 'nuff said.
>
>Actually, not necessarily.
>
>I'm going to (possibly re-)post here a link to one of my favorite
>documents intended to try to avoid this sort of thing.
>
>It tends to hew a little closer to Mark's point of view (and I'm sure
>he's already read it :-), but since the person reading it isn't known
>to the person who wrote it, it's a little less personal.
>
>It's called "Asking Smart Questions", and it's as applicable in this
>our small world as it is in the big full world.  It was written by Eric
>Raymond, author of "The Cathedral and The Bazaar" and editor of "The
>New Hacker's Dictionary", and while he is an admittedly opinionated
>bastard, he has many god points to make.

One has to judge people's opinions based on their knowledge and expertise.
I'm much more likely to value Eric Raymond's opinions on technical computer
and software issues than I am Rosie O'Donnell's opinions on anything except
dieting (and do exactly the opposite of what she recommends :-).

>Read it.  Learn it.  Live it.
>
>http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

I hadn't seen that one before.  I like it enough that I've added a link to
it to the introduction message sent to all list subscribers, and will
probably do the same for other lists we maintain.

Bill
--
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