[plug] Newcomers' welcome (revised)

[Gavin Chester]

On Sat, 2005-02-05 at 16:00, Kev wrote:
> James
> 
> I reckon this is pretty good.  On first reading I can't really come up 
> with anything to add (or change for that matter).
> 
> Kev
> 
> James Devenish wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> > 
> > Here is the second public draft of a newcomers' "welcome message".
> > This would be sent automatically to each new subscriber when he
> > or she joins the list. I welcome your revisions, and you should
> > probably post them to the list so that others can gauge their
> > feelings. When providing amendments to the message, please be
> > sure to quote clearly (or "bottom-post") to make it practical for
> > us to merge your suggestions.

-snip-

James, I hesitate to write because right at the moment I don't have time
to amend things where I feel needed so I don't want my comments to be
interpreted as hollow criticism.  I also know that what you (and perhaps
others) have generated so far would have taken much thought and work. 
For that, I take my hat off to you.  

However, the overarching comment (NOT criticism) I have is that you have
tried to cover so much ground that I feel the document has simply become
way too long and will be overwhelming as a first greeting.  I would
suggest distilling perhaps 6-10 salient issues and have them as
one-liner bullet points with a link to a page on PLUG's website to read
the full version.  The whole thing of the first greeting should perhaps
fit into one email window without having to be scrolled.  That is not a
hard rule - just an idea of what I would consider an optimum length.

Also, you would have to consider your audience.  Ask yourself who is
likely to want to join the PLUG mailing list?  One answer might be that
there would be many newbies, like me, but there are probably many
"not-newbies".  And, even though I call myself a newbie I deserve that
title only relative to diehards who've been hacking Linux command lines
for many years.  That is, I've grown up through DOS and Windows learning
many "hacks" as a desktop user since 1988 until I had the "courage" to
break the apron strings and tackle Linux about 18mths ago.  So, I'm not
completely clueless, just misguided until recently ;-) 

In other words, any welcome would have be sensitive not to "write down"
to a level that treats someone as if they just picked up a keyboard last
week (I'm not saying what you've written does do that).  It would likely
be a fact that sort of person would rarely start their PC use on Linux
(unless well guided by a mentor); and, even less likely that they would
then leap into joining a group like PLUG.  For example, it took me about
12mths after picking up Linux to follow a friend's advice and look you
guys up.

I'm happy to have a crack at drafting a short, punchy "welcome" email if
you feel what I say has merit - just don't hold your breath for a week
or so :-).  Meantime I think your writing is going well - just more
appropriate for a different time and place rather than as the first
welcome.

Regards, Gavin.