Re: [cobalt-users] Help please.

["Steven Werby" <steven-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Amy Matthews <a.i.m.@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> If you do not wish to reply to people asking for help - go elsewhere.

Dom Latter <qube@xxxxxxx> is a pretty frequent contributor here.  I think
you misunderstand his attitude and his reasoning.  Dom and many others on
this list (like myself ) want to help, but we expect list members to use
common netiquette.  And we expect list members to do a cursory search of the
archives before asking a question on the list that has been asked and
answered repeatedly week after week.

> This is the most unhelpful e-mail list, I have ever come across.

Really?  I find this list to have some intelligent, insightful and helpful
people and I've been actively participating for nearly a year.  I don't
recall seeing any other posts from you.  What is your opinion based on?  Let
me know what lists you are comparing this to so I can give them a look.
<smile>

> As for replies at the top - this the default on the majority of e-mail
> clients (I.E. MS).

I'm using Outlook Express to compose this email.  It has the behavior you
describe, but that doesn't mean it's the right way to construct a reply.
And is it really that much of a chore to put your responses somewhere else
other than the top of the email?

> Why should I or others have to keep scrolling to the bottom of every
> e-mail, when we have been reading the thread to date. All we are
> interested in is the answer - the question we already know.

Using your logic, email replies should never quote the original email.  We
all already know the question, right?  The truth is many list members don't
read the entire thread and don't read all posts in order.  Furthermore, many
posts contain several thoughts and questions and many threads span days.  A
well constructed reply snips the content that matters so the reader
shouldn't have to do much scrolling.

> I realise that your e-mail is one of sarcasm, but many people on this list
> are new to the world of servers, they wish to learn, but often cannot find
> the answers to their questions in the archives. So what so they do- they
> ask.

But many of these people aren't looking and don't intend to b/c they are
lazy, ignorant or as*holes.  If you repeatedly ask your coworkers questions
you can easily find answers for they will get annoyed.  This list is no
different.

> This is a Cobalt list, one supported and promoted by Cobalt to take some
> of the burden from other support lines.

I would argue that this list is supported by other Cobalt users, not Cobalt
itself.  In fact, I believe this list is still not officially supported by
Cobalt, though some of their employees are nice enough to post here on their
spare time (how do they have spare time?  <smile>).

> It does not put Cobalt in a good light if people like you, keep on
criticising others.

As Cobalt sells more servers participation and volume in this list will
increase.  That will mean more HTML posts some of us can't read, more email
downloads that some of us pay for, more questions posed with answers readily
available in the KB and archives and ultimately more intelligent, helpful
people leaving this list.  Dom and others like him don't want to see that
happen.  I welcome criticism and I find that less than 1% of posts are
inappropriate criticsm and Dom's post is not.

> If you can't stand the heat - get out of the fire.

I'll have to remember that!  That is very clever!  By the way, what is that
"sarcasm" thing you referred to earlier?  I'd look it up, but my dictionary
is on the other side of my office.

> Join in or get lost.

Dom has joined in many times in the past.  Have you?  I only save posts that
I find to be useful and sadly I don't see any of yours.

> Now that is off my chest, can we please get on with supporting each other,
> than snipping.

Absolutely!  There has been a lot of recent discussion about adding support
through IRC, FAQs and other forums.  What are people's thoughts on
suggesting that Cobalt create several user lists?  Maybe Cobalt specific,
Linux related, and 3rd party software could be one way. I welcome other
suggestions and I'd like to hear the pros/cons of creating new lists.

I think a lot of the netiquette problems and failure to search the archives
and KB are because of user ignorance.  I'd like to see Cobalt to make a
netiquette guideline readily available from the mailing list subscription
pages and to display a list of rules and guidelines for the lists.

Steven Werby {steven-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx}