[plug] [OT] Rant: plug at plug postings

[James Devenish]

In message <3E72D3D8.8050607 at postnewspapers.com.au>
on Sat, Mar 15, 2003 at 03:18:48PM +0800, Craig Ringer wrote:
> I also, due to my particpation in PLUG, help answer other's questions
> when I can do so usefully, and only expect a similar courtesy in
> return.

Same. I answer people's questions but usually don't get answers to my
own (except from you!).

> Work, home, or hobby isn't so important as far as I'm concerned

Isn't "so" important? Sure. I can't which part of my e-mail appears to
have contradicted that.

What I suppose is that pure hobbyists often find themselves not having
commercial support, not having colleagues that share their issues, not
having spare resources, etc. Whereas people at work may find that they
do have support systems at their workplaces. It would seem undesirable,
to me, if people were to ignore their work support systems and rely
instead on a volunteer medium that hobbyists also rely on.

> Or is there an "anticommercial" clause in the PLUG charter I missed?

I think you might have confused which parts of my e-mail were written by
me and which parts were from someone else. I said "I don't think there's
anything wrong with [it]".

> As it happens, my work email address is my only email address. It stays 
> constant over the years, as I change ISPs etc.

I get the feeling that you think the central theme of my e-mail was
something about people asking work questions on the PLUG list. It
wasn't. What I was writing about was *repeated* behaviour that
produced messages with characteristics equivalent to:

 - asking questions in areas where they've already received advice.
 - showing no evidence of having attempted to follow the advice and
   providing no evaluation of why the advice didn't work for them.
 - not contributing their reasons for ignoring that advice.
 - posing questions whose answers are already summarised in the
   documentation they've been referred to (again, they make no reference
   to that documentation nor why it does or does not suit their needs).
 - posing questions whose answers demonstrably appear at the top of
   simple Google searches.

One approach that would be taken in some lists is to encourage people to
maintain balance by:

 - including the context of their problem,
 - using Google (or an alternative) as a starting point, then indicating
   (a) that Google's answers were unhelpful or (b) that some discussion
   on PLUG would be interesting (e.g. to find out what others are
   doing),
 - using man pages, product documentation, or online help when it is
   available.
 - posting summaries of their subsequent successes (if achieved).

> Does the From: address represent a statement of what my purpose is?

Of course not. Personally, I don't think I've posted a single thing from
my @cyllene or @guild accounts that were anything to do with either of
those sites.

> If somebody reads the documentation and just can't figure out what is
> going on, isn't it perfectly fair to post to PLUG asking for help?

Notice that you started your sentence with "If...".