Life on the Mailing List, or, "No, really: don't be afraid" (was Re: RE: filePro Programmer shortage)

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Tue, Mar 01, 2005 at 10:58:33AM -0500, Aljex Software wrote:
> I hesitate to submit questions to the group because some contributors spend 
> more time ridiculing the question than addressing them.  Nobody enjoys 
> entering a hostile environment.  If the group gets back to providing the 
> excellent service it can we'd all be better off.

Now, I'd like to dive in on this particular point for a moment, and
it's because it's a distinction that I think is important, and I hope
that everyone -- particularly those who might be reticent about posting
here for this sort of reason -- will take note.

(I've unthreaded this, and changed ths subject, so it doesn't get lost
in people's filters, or reflexes.)

The incident that triggered this latest round, as have most of the
other ones that I've seen in the last 2 years of being here, have one
thing in common, no matter the specific topic over which two people are
disagreeing (and the rest of us choosing up sides :-):

	They're between people who hang out here all the time.

I don't believe I've ever seen one of our regulars get snotty with an
identifiable newcomer.  I suppose I might be wrong, but I don't think
by far.

So, while things may get... spirited in here, occasionally, I don't
think that it's necessarily reasonable to extend that to "so if I ask a
newbie question, I'm gonna get jumped on".

And it *certainly* isn't reasonable to extend it to "so everyone on the
list do your best Caspar Milquetoast impression so we don't scare off
the meek".

People are people, folks.  We're all gonna have bad days, we're all
gonna occasionally think that the person asking the question a) should
already know because we already told them or b) (my personal favorite)
should have tried it themselves, instead of bugging us with it.  But it
doesn't mean we're all ogres, and it doesn't mean that people should
hide in the corner if they need help.

I'll quote the underlying philosophy of Wikipedia at this point, I think:

	Be Bold!

If you have a question, ask it.  Especially if you're a newbie.  We
really aren't trying to scare you off.  Sure we get outta hand
occasionall; we're human beans.  But we're really a pretty nice bunch
of people.

I'm going to follow this up to the list with a document which is posted
monthly to the remnants of the (Howard) Dean for America local mailing
list I'm on here in St Pete.  It's instructive, enlightning, and
downright hilarious in spot.  Hopefully, it might make clearer to some
what's *really* going on here.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

      If you can read this... thank a system adminstrator.  Or two.  --me