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Re: Exhibition: Interim Summary




On 11 Jun 1998, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
> 
> This means that at least some of them will join the list *and* ask 
> newbie questions. The problem is that if those question are routinely
> met with "piss off, go RTFM" without even telling the poor sod which
> FM to R then the whole idea of participating in Computax in order to
> promote Linux as a general purpose OS that is not just for geeks and 
> is not as unfriendly as its envious rivals say will be subverted.

You're right. That's why I told all the people I met at Computex that if
they are posting a question to write before that they visited us in
Computex and have some questions, in a hope that people would be nice to
them. 

> 
> Yes, the newbie has to RTFM before posting a question, and yes, many
> (most?) of them don't, and I don't like it any more than the next guy.
> But IMHO it would be a pity if the effort that some members of this
> list, Eli, Tuvik, and others, invested in the show is rendered useless
> because people who paid attention and are willing to try are met with
> rudeness. And it won't do any good to our image as a group, I believe.
> No list member is obliged to pay attention to newbie questions, but I
> believe it is better to refrain from replying at all than be rude.
> And it is not that much of an effort to point the newbie to the right
> FM.
> 

The problem is not that they don't know what FM to R, they don't know how
to RTFM at all, since they have never done such a thing (poor things...).
We should explain them that there are lots of ways to get information
about linux, and where.  I still remember that I promised I'll make a
newbie page for the web site after this semester is over (to emphasize how
busy I am: I spent last night at the Uni. working!!! (After I oopsed my
motherboard) since I have a huge project to hand in.) 

I think that I'll even unsubscribe from the list for the following month
(I took eight (!!) courses this semester, so I'll have lot's of work
during the exams season)



> -- 
> Oleg Goldshmidt                 
> 

Liran Zvibel.
---
http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~liranz/