Wow, this is one crazy-looking thread! It's hard to know on which
branch to post a response.
As Eugene said, the original problem was the frustration of experienced
members with new members who didn't read the documentation before
posting simple questions. Why don't people read the documentation?
1) They don't know where it is or even that it exists.
2) They can't understand it or find things in it.
3) They're too lazy or too pressed for time to read it.
I think a FAQ would be a good solution to this. The downside is that
someone has to maintain it. So, is it less effort to maintain a FAQ or
to answer the same questions over and over again?
For a FAQ to work, it has to be thrust in the face of new users before
they have a chance to ask the first question. This could be done by
automatically e-mailing it to new subscribers to the list at the same
time as the "Welcome to mutt-users" message, but maybe separately as
"Mutt FAQ and other information" to decrease the likelihood of it being
ignored. In addition, the FAQ, or a pointer to it, should be posted to
the list monthly.
The top of the FAQ should have something like this:
Sources of information about Mutt
1. On-line help. Type '?' in any menu. From there, search for key
words using '/'.
2. The on-line man page. Type 'man mutt'.
3. The mutt FAQ. This document. Also on the web at [URL].
4. The mutt manual. While running mutt, hit the <F1> function key.
If this doesn't work, look in the mutt distribution directory in
doc/manual.txt, or on the web at
http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual.txt.
5. The Mutt home page, http://www.mutt.org/.
6. Usenet news, comp.mail.mutt.
7. The mutt-users mailing list. See http://www.mutt.org/#discuss.
I don't have any experience with separate lists for newbies and hackers,
but I don't see how that would solve the problem. How are newbies to
get proper answers from other newbies? If I wanted to be helpful and
subscribe to both lists, I would still want to do something to minimize
the volume of questions to the newbie list.
Also, there are all types of newbies. The annoying ones are the
clueless ones. Would a clueless newbie know to subscribe to the newbie
list?
Regards,
Gary
--
Gary Johnson | Agilent Technologies
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | RF Communications Product Generation Unit
| Spokane, Washington, USA
