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

[Craig Ringer]

> 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.

I can agree with that. OTOH, at least a fair few people, while using 
Linux in a work environment, have no support through work. I'm one of 
them, as the only IT guy at the POST. Its reassuring to be able to ask 
the kindly folk on PLUG when its beat-head-against-brick-wall time.

>>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]".

Fair enough ; sorry.

> 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. 

I did find it a bit hard to interpret exactly, and that appeared to be 
the thrust of it. As you explain, clearly I was mistaken - so thanks for 
clearing that up.

> 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.

OK, I see your point. That can be very frustrating indeed, and there is 
a bit of it going on. *begins foaming*. If nothing else, a "thanks for 
the answers folks but blah turned out to be not for us, we're trying 
blah instead" can be good. Give and take.

> One approach that would be taken in some lists is to encourage people to
> maintain balance by:
> 
>  - including the context of their problem,

... which is basic procedure for asking technical questions, not only on 
mailing lists but to tech support and even one's colleagues. 
Nonetheless, so many people don't follow it that it's quite sad.

>  - 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.

ie RTFM (well, if you can find it), then post.

>  - posting summaries of their subsequent successes (if achieved).

Always nice, isn't it. Sometimes people can't or forget, but its good to 
hear some followup. Even if its "arrggh, still doesn't work."

>>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...".

*lol* . Good point. Alas, it is very much an "if".

I'm not a very active member of many other lists, so I can't talk about 
how they deal with such problems, but the issue of selfish/impolite 
behaviour on lists is significant. Alas, there's usually a constant 
stream of people joinging and leaving lists, and while things like an 
auto-mailed "on joining" FAQ can be handy, the people likely to be a 
problem will probably ignore that sort of thing anyway. *sigh*. I'm 
/very/ far from perfect, but some effort to help others and make some 
effort to find your own answers first can go a long way.

OTOH, even responses to posts about obvious or well known issues can 
sometimes bring out some intersting subtelties that some on the list 
(often myself) may not have been aware of. Its posts of "my email 
doesn't work, help" (hypothetical example only) that /really/ get me. 
They have echoes of drooling-idiot-support at work.

Craig