As someone who is new to Asterisk and Linux (I guess I am a newbie), but who has been doing a ton of research, Google searches, and is getting to intimately know the wiki, I take offense to Steven Critchfield's commentary about newbies.
It is interesting... There seems to be a passion surrounding the * system that is coming from a variety of work areas including telecom engineers, network admins, and just home tinklers. You have the opportunity to provide a solution that many small to medium businesses could take advantage of in amazing ways. This is the tip of the iceberg, * could play a major role in telecommunications in the future. (I make these statements after having just dropped $120,000 on an Inter-tel system a year ago, and having gone through the whole process of evaluating a variety of systems. Each system provided good features, but it seemed like each of the feature sets provided in * ended up costing at least a couple grand to add to our system... But this is another discussion entirely.) Unfortunately, I feel that you may end up pushing people away if you keep attacking them. There are people like myself who are decision makers in using this technology and who actually have money to spend on implementation. If we needed to, we would hire someone from this group to help us out. It has not come to that yet for us, as I have been able to implement most aspects without serious problems. This list is for general Asterisk user questions... And from what I have seen this is the best place for someone like myself to get a grip on the different technical concepts related to *. I believe that I, as what you would refer to as a "Newbie", have just as much of a "right" to ask a question about setting up *, as a seasoned * user has the "right" to ask questions relating to implementing a more complex technology and getting help for a problem. Now, to offer a solution, and I don't know if this is possible, as I know nothing about the mechanics behind this list... Is it possible to automatically send an email to each new subscriber after they confirm their email that gives them some basic "how-to's" related to this list i.e. (this is what I have done) 1. Before asking a question, do a Google search 2. After a general Google search, do a specific search on this group 3. After a Google search, look at http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk the information contained in these pages will answer 95% of your startup questions. 4. If you have done 1, 2, & 3 - feel free to email the list. 5. Please do not email the list asking people to hold your hand. That is not what the list is for, it is for help if you run into an implementation problem, not to teach you the basics by using 1, 2, & 3. Thanks for your thoughts on this! Jeff Busch [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Shadow Roldan Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 4:32 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: [OT] - [Asterisk-Users] Why should I answer a Newbie question,therethick! If you really want to do this the asterisk list is based off of mailman. You can learn all about mailman here: http://list.org/ But really, what are the odds that newbs will know to go there first? Are you going to moderate it? Someone has to actually answer the questions you know, if a newb only list is going to exist. Look, don't answer lame questions if you don't want to. Flaming a newb for being a newb is just mean. (they will eventually RTFM or STFW or they will fail). This is the way of the open source community. Otherwise, they can hire one of the many companies that have sprung up around supporting open source products (tons for asterisk specifically, some of you probably even get paid this way) why do you think redhat makes so much on support contracts? Personally, I'm only not a newb cause I paid for a training class to get me out newbieism(sp?) My 2 cents -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Race Vanderdecken Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 8:57 AM To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Why should I answer a Newbie question,therethick! If some one would like to show me the site that explains how to setup a mailing list then I will create a Newbie list for asterisk and voip questions and answers. I am only asking for someone to show me the site and maybe a few pointers on how to start it up. Only because I don't have the time or experience to do it quickely enough to get the newbies off the list. And I am a bit slow with apache and web type sutff, as you can tell by my website codetyrant.com. I will personally pay for the hosting of the list. It is not that I am tired or will ever grow tired of passing out fish and giving fishing lessons it is just I don't have the good fortune to be adept at web interfaces. Also, suggestions for the domain name would be welcomed. Race "The Tyrant" Vanderdecken "In the Land of the Blind, the One-eyed man is Elvis...", copyright RPV 1997. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steven Critchfield Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 11:28 AM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Why should I answer a Newbie question,therethick! On Wed, 2005-03-02 at 11:01 -0500, Race Vanderdecken wrote: > This list is owned by no one. Actually it is owned by Digium. It has many contributers though. > When someone drives off the road into a ditch in a snow storm they last > thing they need is someone telling them they should have invested in > snow chains and defensive driving lessons before leaving the house. > > Newbies need help getting out of the ditch so traffic can continue to > flow and the rubber neckers can be abated. If you are not willing to > pull off to the side of the road and help the fool by pushing their car > out of the ditch you have no right to give him the finger as you drive > past. As a person who spent 9 hours in traffic last winter just to drive 15 miles due to idiots who should have just stayed home, I think your analogy breaks down. At some point, you either need to learn to drive or you pay someone else to transport you or your stuff. Same applies to computer work, either you can do the work yourself or you pay someone else to do it. Even your snow driver analogy works here, you either get yourself out of the ditch or you pay someone to do it for you. The payment is not always monetary. Sometimes the payment is just a showing of sufficient effort. Back to your snow driver analogy, if the driver in the ditch is just waiting in the car for you to come over and push them out without even attempting anything on their own, you would be less inclined to bother. You would be even less inclined to continue exerting your own effort if the driver was not cooperating or wasn't even interested in getting out to help push. -- Steven Critchfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
