Structuring this newsgroup

[Richard Schaut]

In article <14651 at bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff at bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
|In article <840 at madnix.UUCP> schaut at madnix.UUCP (Rick Schaut) writes:
|>And if you were a beginner and had a question, would you ask other
|>beginners or the 'wizards'?  It's funny, but the Borland programming
|>forum on Compu$erve gets as much, if not more, traffic from beginners
|>as this group gets, and their questions are treated as respectfully
|>and as seriously as the difficult stuff.  
|
|Usenet is not CompuServe.  CIS supplies its own machines and you pay,
|voluntarily, for the privilege of darting in and accessing just what you
|want -- with no burden on others as a result.  Usenet is a cooperative
|net where news articles flood everywhere, and it has different rules.

Granted, there are differences.  However, these differences are
irrelevant when it comes to how people should respond to questions.
Also, since restructuring the newsgroup will not reduce the traffic,
any remarks about the volume of traffic are also irrelevant.  This
discussion has grown out of people's annoyance with constant, often
repeated, questions by beginners.  I was pointing out two things:
1) This is a problem that restructuring the newsgroup will not solve;
and 2) Even if a question has been asked fifteen times in the last
month, we should still treat the askers with repsect.

|Specifically if you are a beginner it is your responsibility to read the
|news.announce.newusers articles before posting anything.  If you do this
|you get to see what comp.unix.wizards is for, and how it differs from
|the other newsgroups.  Many problems begin when beginners, or even
|longtime lurkers who have never read the n.a.n stuff, confuse this net
|with their neighborhood BBS or pay time share service.

This is a problem related to system adninistrators doing their jobs,
and is not related in any way to the structure of this newsgroup.
Most beginners don't even know that n.a.n exists (on both systems
that I have accounts, nothing was ever said to me about netiquette,
appropriate newsgroups, etc).

|>                                          I have yet to see the letters
|>'RTFM' posted in a message there.  Can't you people grow up and remember
|>that you were once beginners at C as well?
|
|Individual CIS Forums are subject to the stylistic and etiquette
|preferences of their Administrators and, in the case of product support
|Forums like Borland, their sponsoring companies.  Borland and CIS make
|money off every beginner who comes in and asks the same questions over
|and over, and off most well meaning experts who kindly answer.  It is
|manifestly not in their financial interest to have newbies offline R'ing
|TFM instead of online reading and posting to the Forum.
|
|Here it is different - we are all sharing the cost of passing this stuff
|around, and the more time newbies spend "offline" the better.

The unpaid people who answer the questions of beginners and kindly do so
at their own expense have as much right to get upset about newcommers asking 
simple questions is you do here.  The point is that they don't!  There is 
a fundamental difference in attitudes that has nothing to do with money.  
Rather, it has to do with treating people as human beings (like NOT referring
to them as 'newbies').  

The problem of newcommers is one that is NOT solved by treating them 
as warts nor by waving our arms about restructuring this newsgroup.  
It has to do with education which is the responsibility of the system 
admistrators.  Obviously, there are administrators out there who are not 
doing their jobs.  Should we take the results of their failings out on 
people who simply don't know better?  It would be far simpler, and much 
more effective, for experienced users to take on that task of education 
themselves.  A little kind e-mail goes a long way without wasting bandwidth.


Rick

"Any questions?  Any answers?  Anyone like a mint?" -- source unknown