[cobalt-users] Open Letter -- Etiquette

["Leo Laporte" <leolaporte101@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

<mini-flame>
I've been watching this newsgroup for a couple of months now I and have 
considered asking or answering questions on this newsgroup on a few 
occasions.  I've stopped myself many times because of the harshness of some 
of the participants on this list.

I see that a few of the participants here are very quick to jump all over 
people for either: 1) lacking the knowledge or 2) asking a question that has 
been asked in the distant past.  Isn't one of the objective of newsgroups 
(and mailing lists) to help other less knowlegeable users; and to promote 
the development of individual users in order to enrichen the user base as a 
whole?

We have all been newbies in different areas of computing at one time or 
another.  What seems elementary to us now was once difficult and obscure at 
some point in the past.

I see that a few participants on this list have decided that they're the 
sheriffs of this town and have taken upon themselves to squelch anybody 
whenever and for whatever reasons they see fit. IF ANYBODY IS GOING TO 
MODERATE THIS LIST, it should be by election or some democratic means and 
NOT because some rude SOB's take it upon themselves to bully the less 
knowledgeable or experienced.

If you see the same questions being asked, just ignore them.  If you think 
that someone should do more investigation on their own, don't respond. 
Flaming just starts another worthless thread! You have to expect certain 
common questions to cycle through the list fairly often.  There is more 
bandwidth being wasted complaining about repeated questions than the 
questions themselves take! I think a Microsoft vs Macintosh vs Linux debate 
would be more productive than some of the stuff I've seen here.

As someone once suggested, it would be nice if a link to the FAQ could be 
embedded in the mailing but until then, let's take it a little easy.
</mini-flame>

Back to laying low,
"A Concerned Non-Participant"
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