Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 21:10:15 -0700 From: "Paul M. Lambert" <plambert@magiclemurs.com> To: stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Roasting Newbies Message-ID: <19991009211015.A736@pinky.magiclemurs.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910100855200.37470-100000@enya.clari.net.au> References: <199910091303.JAA33525@blackhelicopters.org> <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910100855200.37470-100000@enya.clari.net.au>
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Perhaps something like what is used in the perl newsgroups: a bot that autoresponds the first time an address sends a message, to say, "Here's a list of good places to look for answers." It's a little more in-your-face, but being automated, a little harder to argue with. (For example, it's easy to ignore an email reply to the bot that deserves to be ignored without making it seem like such a personal judgement). It would be even better if it could be placed _between_ users and the mailing list, just like the perl bot is in comp.lang.perl.misc, so that a message sent to the list isn't posted until the sender replies to the automated short FAQ and so forth first. These are, of course, ideas. The purpose here is brainstorming. --plambert On Sun, 10 Oct 1999, Daniel O'Callaghan wrote: > > On Sat, 9 Oct 1999, Michael Lucas wrote: > > > I don't think it's that we're actively hostile to newbies. We're just > > sick of answering the same questions over and over again. > > > > To be honest, I don't want developers wasting their time answering > > questions about the OS. I want them coding. > > One solution I have found to be effective in at least reducing the > time taken to respond to poorly detailed questions, and also leads to > reduced blood pressure changes and a less emotional response, is to have a > canned response text file which can be e-mailed back to the poster. > > Something like... > > Hi, Welcome to FreeBSD, we're glad you have made the choice to use > it as your operating system. We understand that problems arise from > time to time, and the mailling lists are where to get answers. > Often, however, the answers are already available on the FreeBSD > web site or in the man pages, as others may have struck your problem > already. > Have you looked in the Handbook? Man pages? Mailling list archives? > You can search all of these at <http://www.freebsd.org/search.html>; > > If you *have* searched for the answers already, please e-mail the > appropriate mailling list with full details of your problem. Don't > forget to include: > * FreeBSD version you are running (uname -a) > * Make, model of the hardware you are having a problem with (if > hardware) > etc,etc,etc > > Cheers, > > Danny > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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