I guess that the answer you were going to offer him involved somebody's private site. I understand why you wouldn't want to distribute that over the debian-user list.
Understand though, that this is a public mailing list, where the problems of the debian-using public are solved. It is not a Good Thing for someone to ask a question on a public mailing list, and for that thread to go private. I read the threads on debian-user because I feel as though I might (and often do) learn something new and useful. Too often (not only on debian-user) I see people requesting that they be replied to directly, and without cc'ing the list. Probably most often because of embarrassment, that they cannot solve their problem themselves. Truth is though, that there are probably thousands of others who have the same problem, or are likely to have the same problem sometime in the future. Posting the answer here is the most efficient way of reaching those users. George Bonser wrote: > #1 because he could reach a large number of people to ask the question. > The alternative is randomly mailing a bunch of people one at a time. See my second paragraph above. > #2 since it is not my archive and I have not been given explicit > permission to post its address in a public forum, I would not do that out > of respect for the archive owner and to prevent swamping of what might be > critical net recources. That's fine. It is not a public web site, or at least, it is a small web site with limited bandwidth. Michael's answer has nothing to do with this, however. > #3 I simply offered to give the original poster the email address of the > archive owner. My attempt to reply by private email failed so I responded > here so that the person could get in contact if the mirror is still > needed. Sure. The answer that Michael gave though was a link to a page on the main debian web site (most definitely not a non-public site, and probably has adequate bandwidth). Also, he stated that he had 'found what [he] was looking for' before you had the opportunity to pass your information on. His find was what I was requesting, not yours. Matthew