Well, lately there was a lot of frustration expressed by some of the
folks, and I could guess that there are many others feeling the same
way but prefer to keep they thoughts for themselves.
This post is an attempt to revive the spirit of our beloved
mod_perl mailing list.
It seems that the pandora box was opened by the "make test" issue, so
here is my take on it:
Well, it works for *most* of the people. For those that doesn't and
who solves the problem we patch the sources and I update the guide to
point to solutions. As a matter of fact I've patched another 'make
test' problem a few weeks ago. I've discovered it while installing
mod_perl, solved it and sent the patch. It might take awhile to find
out what the problem is, but the real joy is when you solve it - try
it once, it's hard at the beginning but it worth every
second/hour/day/week you spent on it. That's the programmer's joy -
welcome to the programmers world :)
Regarding the policies. You are lucky as this list is pretty good
relative to other I used to lark at and left. The rate of helping is
much higher here relative to the rate of flames. As a matter of fact
other folks and me, are trying to calm down the flamers in case the
flames are irrelevant. You can read through the archives, if you want
to the proof.
Jeffrey is a good guy and he really helps and contributes a lot,
don't forget that we are all volunteers and spend our precious time
helping out people. We could make more money at the same time or just
getting some sleep, instead of helping at all. The reason not all
questions are being answered is either that we don't know or don't
have the time. There is also a term of "sexy question", if your
doesn't fall into that category you might be out of luck.
You should understand that when you flame on people who contribute,
the flamed people say "what the heck, I'm out of here". Oops you've
just lost yet another contributor.
As for unanswered question, Matt Sergeant starts to provide a
commercial services, like support and training and more people will
join later. If you don't have the time/knowledge to learn things on
your own, please consider using his commercial support. If you came to
me and said: "Stas I'll pay you so you will not have to work to feed
your family, please asnwer to all my questions", I would probably do
that. And many other too. Please remember that we do what we do,
because we beleive in a good world...
Now, I don't claim that I know the humans nature, but I think that
many of you "silent" listeners should get out of your hiding places
and start getting involved into a project's life. Don't be surprised
if one day the number of answers to the questions will come to
zero. You should try to asnwer, at the beginning the simple questions,
later when you gain the confidence a more complicated ones.
Please remember that no one, I stress NO ONE, will flame on your that
you gave a wrong answer. Just claim that:
I'm not sure whether I'm correct, but possibly this should solve
your problem. You aren't in the court, you are in the place that
alive only for a sole reason that someone have the guts to help.
Why going far, take myself for example - look at the archives, 2 years
ago I was asking stupid questions, with time I've learned a bit, but I
was afraid to answer someones questions because I wasn't sure I was
right. But later it hit me, I understood that because the gurus has to
asnwer stupid questions they didn't make it to the real complicated
ones.
So I've decided: hey, if I try to take the load off the gurus they
will ask more of my questions. And you know what, it worked I've tried
to asnwer questions and do it more or less until today whether I know
the asnwer or not. When I don't, at least I try to suggest something,
many times the person that has asked the question finds the answer
himself, all she needed is to be listened...
BTW, that's how the guide was born (the 1 year anniversary
celebrations will be announced in December :)
To summarize my rumblings:
* We are all volunteers - please remember that. If you want to get all
the asnwers, you should consider paying for that.
= Since we are volunteers we do that for fun, that's one of the
reasons why some of the questions go unasnwered (the sexy syndrom)
= The other reason, is that we don't always have time
= The third reason, is that we cannot always reproduce the problems in
question.
* Don't forget that there is no free meal! Use the help you get on the
list, but don't abuse it. But not abusing I mean:
= Give back! Don't afraid to contribute and disregard the post of
people who think too much about themselves. If you have a problem try
to solve it first by yourself - once you solve it, you will feel very
proud of yourself and hey, you have learned something! Don't forget to
tell the list how did you make it.
= Be gentle. Don't flame for nothing. Especially if your flaming
target's intentions were good by her understanding,
