Re: Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)

[Grant Edwards]

On 2008-12-23, Mark David Dumlao  wrote:

> Half the fun of Gentoo is knowing that you're kinda on your
> own.

I find the opposite to be true: I'm much _less_ on my own with
Gentoo that I was with any other distro.  There's a Gentoo
guide or howto for almost everything I've tried to do (some of
of it pretty obscure).  I've found the documentation for Gentoo
is far more complete, accurate, and up-to-date than for
RedHat/Mandrake, Suse, Debian, or Ubuntu.

I've been running Gentoo for years, and I'm still amazed and
how complete and up-to-date the guides are.  Just yesterday I
used the Bluetooth guide to get my new mobile phone paired with
my IBM Thinkpad.  Every step was completely and accurately
explained and had an example listing.

When I used to google for help on problems with Mandrake or
Ubuntu, all I would find were postings on those ghastly "web
forums" that were often several years old and did nothing but
confirm that other people couldn't get X to work either.  Those
postings were usually answered by people who didn't understand
the problem and proffered incorrect or irrelevant suggestions.
Rarely were real solutions found, and if they were they were
out of date and no longer applicable.

For the rare occasion when there's not a detailed guide or
howto, I've always gotten very prompt and accurate help from
the mailing list.

-- 
Grant Edwards   grante Yow! I just remembered
  at   something about a TOAD!
   visi.com

Re: Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)

[»Q«]

In <6e2210230812221647n528ecdf4w5f4b20d1d1d6f...@mail.gmail.com>,
"Mark David Dumlao"  wrote:

> I gave the reason why, I described what probably caused it,
> substantiated that there is something that could be done about it,
> and even was the one that took action on it.

And then made lots of other posts about it, serving no purposebut to
further a noisy thread. Must the thread go on until everyone agrees with
you or a notice is put on the ml page?  Or both?

FWIW, IMO you filed a good bug, though your advocacy for the fix is way
over the top.  Can't it be let go now, at least on this list?

-- 
»Q«
 Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.

Re: Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)

[»Q«]

On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:42:52 -0500
Willie Wong  wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 10:39:30PM -0600, Penguin Lover Dale squawked:

> On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 11:05:58PM -0600, Penguin Lover Steven
> Susbauer squawked:
> > Some mail readers convert *asterisks* as bold statements. I believe
> > it is the generally accepted way to make a section stand out when
> > dealing with plain text.
> 
> Ah. Yes, slrn does that also for newsgroups. I've always thought of
> that as 'emphasis' and not 'bold', probably because I see it more
> often printed with the asterisks then as bold text. So my apologies 
> that Dale's reference was lost on me. 
> 
> However, this begs the question: on such a mail reader, if I write:
> 
>   rm -rf *.*
> 
> does it show up just as 'rm -rf '? ;)

The mangling of asterisks which aren't meant to be markup is a pretty
good reason to turn the feature off, IMO.  But slrn honors a way around
it ... by introducing more markup, the so-called verbatim marks.  I
think some other clients now honor them also, though slrn documentation
still says it's the only one.



-- 
»Q«
 Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.

Re: Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)

[»Q«]

On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 23:05:58 -0600
Steven Susbauer  wrote:

> Some mail readers convert *asterisks* as bold statements. I believe it
> is the generally accepted way to make a section stand out when dealing
> with plain text.

Yes.  The other two kinds of conventional pseudo-markup are /slashes/
for italics and _underscores_ for underlining.  Even with clients that
don't use them to change rendering, they're easy to pick up by eye when
reading the plain text.

-- 
»Q«
 Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.

Re: Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)

[Dale]

»Q« wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:46:31 +0800
> "Mark David Dumlao"  wrote:
>
>   
>> I am currently searching my subscription info, the gentoo site, or the
>> mailing list welcome for any hints that html messages are rude or
>> unwanted. I am having some difficulty finding it, that alone is a
>> warning sign that the amount of pre-specialization needed to
>> participate in the community is dangerously prohibitive to the point
>> where it is almost invisible.
>> 
>
> I'd say the importance of sending plain text to mailing lists is common
> knowledge, but if you really think there should be a note about it on
> the ml page, I guess the thing to do would be to file a bug for the web
> site.
> 
>
>   

I think it should be on the website page where it lists all the mailing
lists and should also be in the email where you confirm it.  I know when
I first joined, I had to get someone to tell me how to make it send text
only.  I didn't know either.  No, I'm not a reformed windoze user
either.  I have never had windoze.  Started with Mandrake, got pissed at
the update process and been with Gentoo ever since.  :-p 

It may be common knowledge to some but not everybody.  This was my first
mailing list to ever subscribe too.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)

[»Q«]

On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:46:31 +0800
"Mark David Dumlao"  wrote:

> I am currently searching my subscription info, the gentoo site, or the
> mailing list welcome for any hints that html messages are rude or
> unwanted. I am having some difficulty finding it, that alone is a
> warning sign that the amount of pre-specialization needed to
> participate in the community is dangerously prohibitive to the point
> where it is almost invisible.

I'd say the importance of sending plain text to mailing lists is common
knowledge, but if you really think there should be a note about it on
the ml page, I guess the thing to do would be to file a bug for the web
site.


-- 
»Q«
 Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.