Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 04:59:25 -0800
From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
To: "richard childers" <fscked@pacbell.net>, "Aaron Hill" <hillaa@hotmail.com>, <gferris@mail.unam.na>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: RE: A retraction & correction ('Was: Re: Pimping FreeBSD Information (was:'Order')')
Message-ID: <002201c0a24f$71584420$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
In-Reply-To: <3A9DF19C.1FC6F993@pacbell.net>
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First of all, my apologies to the list for responding to this again, I'm sure everyone's starting to get tired of it, and I promise this will be the last. Of course, naturally don't expect Richard to be satisfied unless he gets the last word, so you will get one more of them I'm sure. :-( >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of richard >childers > >I'd like to correct my previous statement. > Thanks Richard, you didn't need to do that, but that you did is appreciated. I've sent and posted plenty of things myself in the past that I later wished I hadn't, or at least rewritten. >A quick review of the archives shows that Ted Mittelstaedt has contributed >copiously to freebsd-questions in the recent past. > >I didn't do a precise breakdown but I did not see a lot of >references to pushing >his book in the body of publically posted messages; this is a >recent phenomenon, >as far as I can tell. > My activity on the questions mailing list itself is recent, regardless of book pushing or not. There's a simple reason - I wasn't subscribed to the list until January 14th of this year. In fact I've NEVER previously been subscribed to the questions list. There's a simple reason for this - I frankly dislike mailing lists for general, worldwide question forums like this, they are about the most inappropriate and technically stupid way of distributing discussion there is. I far and away prefer Usenet news, it's technical model is superior because you aren't clogging up the Internet with multiple copies of messages and the reader doesen't have to destroy bandwidth on their circuit on messages that all they need to do is read the subject line then skip. If you could do a search on the comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc on Deja you would find that I've been active on Usenet for years and years, nearly 20 in fact. I actually used Usenet when the only way to do it was to run rn on a shell system that was connected via UUCP, this was long before the Internet, and before Usenet I used computerized BBS's. In fact, Portland was one of the first cities in the world that had private BBS's, and they called them CBBSes and we used terminals on 110 baud modems with accoustic couplers to access them. And we liked em, dammit! The very first modem I bought was a direct connect 300 Baud and it cost me $150 and there was no AT command set, just a switch, and I thought I had gotten the deal of the century! So, don't start in with this archive crap, searchable indexes of discussion forums are a recent Internet phenomonon and I was active on electronic forums that most people have never heard of today long before the search engine was invented, let alone conceived. So, if that's the case why use the mailing list now? Well, not that I want to start a flame war but I'll throw a rock at the window and say that the FreeBSD core team has been very successful at propagandizing just about everyone serious about FreeBSD to ditch Usenet and use the mailing lists. I hate this, but battling it is spitting in the wind and I know when to walk away from that battle. Usenet has been going downhill for years anyway, each year the posts are more inane, and once most of the dumb news administrators started letting any jackass create top level heiarcharies instead of making them stuff them into alt.* then the remaining controls on news went into the toilet. It's obvious that the FreeBSD core team long ago came to these conclusions and decided to go the mailing list route, and I decided that once I got the book out, that I'd have to start participating on the mailing list. >I didn't see any detailed answers, however, to others' questions; >a detailed >answer is one that includes pathnames, syntax details, and at the >very least a >reference to the relevant man pages, by my book. I would expect >that level of >detail from someone whom had written a book; wouldn't you? > I always use the same formula when answering questions and participating on mailing lists, it's one I highly recommend to anyone who will listen and I usually follow it unless someone manages to get me irritated. Here it is if you want to know: a) Don't publically respond to questions that you've seen answers to in the last few months. The reason is simple - to even find out how to sign up to the list you have to read past the sections that explain all about how to search the list, and if people can't put 2 and 2 together, then e-mail them privately and remind them to search the list. If you just feel a burning need to answer one of these questions anyway, (suppose the questioner keeps asking it) then mail them privately - we don't all really need to read the direction to purchase a different network card for the umpteenth time already. b) When you decide to publically respond, plan on answering the question with multiple posts. After all what's the point of a discussion forum if you don't discuss! Your first posted answer should always be general - if the questioner likes it, they will ask for more, and you can then spend the time to give them a through answer. Why waste a half hour on a detailed answer that the questioner doesen't want to read? c) Don't publically post to the list an answer that is so narrow in scope that it's completely inapplicable to everyone else, now and in the future, save the questioner. Have a heart, don't stuff people's mailboxes for no reason. d) Identify a target group of questioners your going to respond to in advance and stay out of the other discussions. >(Maybe I didn't look hard enough. I suppose I can drill down a few >more layers >and do a statistical summary, easily enough ... at the expense of >some time, I >have thus far refused to invest.) > No, if you WANT detailed information from me, there's a remarkably easy way to get it - ASK for it. I'm from the "give them enough rope to hang themselves" school - I'm not going to fall all over myself doing something for someone unless they have enough interest to _ask_ me to do it, by gum! You could almost say this is a basic politeness issue - are we now so taken everything for granted that we should expect the world laid down at our feet without even asking?!?!? >But this is the heart of my objection; one should contribute one's >knowledge >freely if one is going to participate in this forum; one should >not use it as a >springboard for one's business interests, at least publically; and I would >discourage using private communications arising out of public >exchanges as a >basis for offering one's book, also. Sorry, but if someone asks me for an answer that's going to take 20 pages of text to explain, I'm going to point them to my book, if I think that there's an answer there that matches what they are looking for. My sig has my book website URL and that site has a link to all of my freely available online material, some of which covers topics that aren't discussed in the book. I'm not preventing others from pointing questioners to other freely available online resources and the owners of those resources are free to do it too. And, as far as a springboard for one's business interests, I think your stepping into a tremendously grey area there. FreeBSD itself is intended to be used to advance one's own business interests - one of the reasons that the original founder, William Jolitz, split from the FreeBSD group is because of FreeBSD's publically stated intent to be used commercially. On the other hand, blatent advertising on a public forum is of course going to offend everybody. Now, sure I walk a fine line when I refer people to my book, I'll readily admit that. But, I don't feel that simply telling people to look at my book is crossing that line. Note that I never said that they have to buy it, and if someone were to e-mail me and say "Gee, I read chapter X of your book and all I want is the information in that chapter, would you send it to me" then I'd have no problem sending them the information - although I may just send them the information, and not a verbatim transcript of the chapter. What I would view as crossing the line is something like posting a review of my book here, or posting a sample chapter, or something like that. Clearly that's material that's better posted elsewhere, such as a website, not dumped on the list. After all, in that direction >lies the next >step, which is collecting the addresses of all participants and >targeting them >with spam (which appears to be happening, by the way; something to >think about >next time one includes freebsd-questions in the Cc: field). > Spamming is never a "next step" for any legitimate business. Not to mention that it's prohibited at the ISP I work at by an AUP that _I_ heavily modified, I cannot imagine doing anything that would more completely destroy my credibility. And, as far as CCing the list, sorry but I answer anything addressed to me and CC'd to the list by a response that's to the sender and also CC'd to the list. If you don't want me to CC the list on a response, then e-mail me privately. After all, this is the point of a public discussion list. >... and I saw lots of questions from Ted, himself, asking for >someone else to >explain what he did not understand. Ah, your one of these "I apologize for being wrong but you still an asshole" type of people. Gee I thought only my wife did that. Simple answer: your wrong. Sure, I'll ask questions here when I think that others have experiences that are useful to be aware of, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a C programmer or developer. If you are one and your thinking of buying my book to help you write software for FreeBSD then don't - that's not the goal of my book and you would be better served by McKusick's book. If you think that all FreeBSD is, is high-level kernel development then your missing most of the FreeBSD world. For everyone like Greg that wrote Vinum, there's 1000 FreeBSD administrators who all they want to do is learn how to use FreeBSD, they don't even care if they know clearly how it operates. Telling them to study the code is pointless, they can't read it and even if they could there's a whole mountain of subsidiary information that has nothing to do with FreeBSD that they need to know. That's my book's target. To write it from time to time I need to ask questions of the FreeBSD developers. Conversely, a book like Greg's isn't aimed at the userbase that needs all this subsidiary information, he makes a lot more assumptions about external material that people should know already. For him to write his he needed to ask questions of the other developers too. Hmmm ... does FreeBSD get a >slice of the >book's profits? After all, they are providing a forum through which this >expertise is being gained, be facilitating access to the >collective expertise. > As a matter of fact, in the back of the book is the FreeBSD 4.2 CDROM, as this CD states right on it that it duplicates Disk #1 of the BSDi FreeBSD 4.2 set, Addison Wesley signed a contract with BSDi for that. Additionally, not only did FreeBSD/BSDi get that, but they got to advertise in the book too - they have a full page ad right on the last page. >I strongly believe in parity as a principle applicable in realsm outside of >telecommunications or error correction; I believe it has >applications in public >policy and public life as well. I have already suggested to Ted >Mittelstaedt >(privately) that this was inappropriate behavior. I don't think Ted took my >objection seriously. > Ah, when was this private e-mail? I don't see that there's anything that you sent to me privately and I am concerned that you may have sent something that I might have deleted by accident. >I suppose I could just unsubscribe, or implement spam filters that filtered >anything with "Mittelstaedt" in it; but what a price to pay, and >what a precedent >to set (and follow); where does this end? > You never used a killfile on a newsreader before? >So I'd like to retract my statements, below; but I would like to >encourage Ted to >post some of these fabulous tips he's pushing everyone to invest >their money in >buying ... at the expense of the FreeBSD server ... and at the >expense of the >social fabric that composes the FreeBSD community ... of which I >am a member. > As I said, there's 5 years of monthly Computer Bits columns online that have many of these tips and if anyone wants to see them they can go to that website and look. If you don't know the URL then key the name into Yahoo, it's the second listing. If you can't do that then concatinate the name and add a dot com and go there. If you can't do that then here it is: http://www.computerbits.com and if you can't negotiate that site's archives then I'm going to draw the line at helping you further!!!! Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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