(excuse my outlook 2000)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jamin Collins [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 9:47 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: List Courtesy (was Newbie question)
>
>
> I may be out of line here. However, this is not the first time I've seen
> snappy rude responses from people in response to others asking
> for help. I
> am simply quoting this message as it is the most recent.
I will agree that there are snappy rude responses on this list, many other
lists too that are only around to provide free support of a product that is
wonderful in many aspects.
>
> Sure, some of the postings for help may not contain all the
> information that
> a more experienced person would have. But to respond to them with a
> statement to the effect of "send all necessary information" is
> crazy. There
> is a certain level of experience necessary to know what may or may not be
> needed to diagnose a problem. As many of the people posting without this
> level of information are new to either Linux or qmail (or both)
> there needs
> to be some understanding on everyone's behalf. And telling
> someone to RTFM
> is normally of little to no help. I've been told several times to RTFM
> without any indication as to which manual. This is of little to
> no help to
> anyone.
A good start would be the documentation included or www.qmail.org/top.html
or the FAQs there. Commonly we point people to LWQ or something similar.
>
> As for qmail, I will be the first to tell you that LWQ and the
> installation
> instructions with qmail itself are for the most part highly inadequate. I
> tried setting qmail up just from the instructions included with the source
> twice, with no luck. Additionally, I tried LWQ twice, with no luck. It
> wasn't until I purchased "Running qmail." that I actually got the thing to
> work. I'm sure that if I went back to either set of instructions
> (source or
> LWQ) that both would be adequate for the installation now that
> I've done it
> before. However herein lies the problem. The documentation that
> currently
> exists is really only helpful to someone that has already installed the
> software once before. But, I've digressed.
>
First time I installed qmail was over 3 years ago, no LWQ and only the
install instructions, I was a fairly unix newbie with no professional
experience and only 1 year personal experience. I installed it perfectly
even with procmail and fastforward to keep sendmail aliases and delivery.
I eventually read LWQ and completely reworked my install, I have since
pointed this source to many newbie friends who want to setup a mailserver
and have hardly needed to answer questions, much less trivial questions.
Some of the questions to this list could be solved with google.com and are
very typical of the new linux generation.
> IMHO, everyone that is offering help via a list such as this should be
> courteous to those asking for help. If you can't be courteous, I ask that
> you please refrain from posting. Snapping at a user asking for help will
> accomplish nothing more than making the user angry and hesitant
> from posting
> in the future. IIRC, these are not the goals of this list or any other
> support list.
>
The goals of this list IMHO is not to answer FAQ's or help with learning
common unix tasks, there are far to many resources to cover here.
Snapping at a user should make them hesitant to post, maybe then will they
at least attempt to search for the correct information.
> I realize, as do most of the user's posting, that support here is provided
> by individuals donating their time of their own free will. All I ask is
> that common courtesy be extended to those asking for help.
>
We ask the same, I have over 100 messages just from this list, I consider
about 1/3 of them actually attempted to make efforts to find out from their
own accord what they needed. How much time do you think people on this list
need to allocate to read 60+ unnecessary emails?
> Jamin W. Collins
>
> -----Original Message-----
<snipped for uselessness>
-- Tim Hunter
