Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 18:29:37 -0500 From: Jon Hamilton <hamilton@pobox.com> To: "Steve Friedrich" <SteveFriedrich@Hot-Shot.com> Cc: "Ben Hockenhull" <benh@jpj.net>, "freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>, "SPROLESD@sw.noacsc.ohio.gov" <SPROLESD@sw.noacsc.ohio.gov>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Making A FreeBSD CD-ROM Message-ID: <199809102325.QAA24554@hub.freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 10 Sep 1998 11:31:59 EDT." <199809101531.LAA13414@laker.net>
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[ redirected to -chat; this doesn't belong in -questions ] In message <199809101531.LAA13414@laker.net>, "Steve Friedrich" wrote: } On Thu, 10 Sep 1998 11:12:08 -0400 (EDT), Ben Hockenhull wrote: } } >> I, personally, think it's unfair to ask any of us to spend our leisure } >> time helping you save $40. What does anyone else think ?? } > } >I, personally, think it isn't that big a deal and you need to relax. It's } >no different than asking for help with one's production (read: makes } >you money) FreeBSD system on the list, for instance. } } I think there are other people on this list that feel basically the way } I do. If you ask a question that implies you haven't done any of the The solution is simple: don't help them. Ignore them. Killfile them. Better yet, try to teach him how to go look in the "obvious" places before asking. Whatever, just get over it. His question was poorly phrased and his gratuitous "if you can't answer by today then never mind" was, well, gratuitous, but you're not helping matters any by jumping up and down with your hair on fire. By definition, your rantings won't reach first time posters who haven't lurked before asking their question, and one would think they'd be the worst offenders. } research yourself, I give you the answer on a silver platter, and many } others won't either. I get about 200 messages a day, and if we can't } prune out the noise, I'll unsubscribe, just as many others have. I Then unsubscribe and get on with your life. Trying to change the lists to fit your notion of reality is roughly akin to trying to teach the proverbial pig to sing; you'll do your blood pressure and possibly your general disposition a favor by just letting go of this issue. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but I suspect it's an awful lot more effort than you may think. I get between 5 and 6 times the number of messages you claim to get in a day, and yes, some of them are irritating whiners who haven't bothered to try to help themselves. I find it much more productive to reply in private to them suggesting places they might look for preliminary information than fuming over the whole thing for each such message that comes by. Some people are repeat offenders; their mail gets sent to the bin and I don't have to worry about it. As the installed base of FreeBSD grows, the S/N ratio of the unmoderated lists will almost certainly continue to deteriorate. Complaining about this fact won't stop it from happening. } suggest we have one or two new lists, call them freebsd-lazy, } freebsd-cheap, or combine them as freebsd-lazy-and-cheap. Then you can Maybe we could have one called freebsd-topics-steve-friedrich-doesnt-like. Did you have a constructive suggestion to make? } spend your leisure time answering questions that the authors of the } questions should have/could have answered themselves, if they had put } forth the effort. I certainly can understand someone who has no } experience asking "where do I begin", and I have helped many people } such as this. But I am tired of going thru hundreds of "I didn't read } ANY FAQs, handbooks, web pages, or any thing else. Would somebody } please install and administer my system for me because it'll make me } money." Then don't. Nobody's holding a gun to your head. } You are responsible for the poor signal to noise ratio. And we need to } do something about it. His post was at least nominally on topic for the mailing list to which he sent it; yours was 100% noise. Whose fault is it again? -- Jon Hamilton hamilton@pobox.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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