[nycbug-talk] list protocol. . .

[Marc Spitzer]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 15:45:24 -0500
Ray <ray at cyth.net> wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 21, 2004 at 02:35:15PM -0500, Dan Langille wrote:
> > I am having trouble phrasing this next statement without sounding
> > rude: If a group has a mission statement and you don't agree with
> > it, shouldn't you be finding another group?  Or at least not going
> > against the statement?
> 
> I'm not sure if this is in response to what I said earlier:
> >People should also learn to do research on their own.  OpenBSD's
> >reputed harshness has its educational value too. =)
> but I was not suggesting that we just automatically respond ``RTFM''
> to every statement.  Rather, it would be nice if we could also
> nurture some people to learn to do research on their own, instead
> of blindly asking questions that have been asked again and again.
> 
> After all, if a user decides to use BSD and finds it impossible to
> use without asking for help on a mailing list, they'll just be left
> with the impression that BSD is completely unusable.

One thing that is being overlooked is that the BSD's man pages are good
and accurate documents, unlike many Linux man pages, so it is actually
useful when the proper man pages are listed.  Also a goal of this group
is to make people more technical/self sufficient and the only way to do 
that is to read.  Now I am not saying that we should not help them but 
that we should help them in such a way that they will stop needing help
eventually, hopefully pretty quickly, thats all.

marc