Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread Alan Gauld
On 02/10/12 02:34, boB Stepp wrote: I have been following the discussions here since middle-May of this year. I have gathered that the volunteers strongly value precision of speech and proper formatting of posts and especially making a strong effort to solve one's problem(s) before bringing

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread leam hall
My own struggles to better communicate, and to have my message heard, supports the concerns raised here. The Python community is a very good one and we are only made better by treating people well. it is easy to go to other lists where I am a newbie and find top posting preferred and other

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread Cecilia Chavana-Bryant
First of all, a HUGE thanks to the volunteers that share their knowledge in this forum for free! When I first became aware of this and other volunteer forums I was amazed that there are people out there willing to spend their valuable time freely helping those of us in need. Thanks also to

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread Steven D'Aprano
On Tue, Oct 02, 2012 at 05:04:35AM -0400, leam hall wrote: My own struggles to better communicate, and to have my message heard, supports the concerns raised here. The Python community is a very good one and we are only made better by treating people well. it is easy to go to other lists where

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread Oscar Benjamin
On 2 October 2012 11:16, Cecilia Chavana-Bryant cecilia.chav...@gmail.com wrote: In my case, I am a complete beginner not only to python but programming in general, a complete beginner to internet forums (this is my third post ever) and I am also not a native English speaker. So, I feel

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread Mark Lawrence
On 02/10/2012 12:44, Oscar Benjamin wrote: On 2 October 2012 11:16, Cecilia Chavana-Bryant cecilia.chav...@gmail.com wrote: In my case, I am a complete beginner not only to python but programming in general, a complete beginner to internet forums (this is my third post ever) and I am also

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread Francois Dion
On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 9:34 PM, boB Stepp robertvst...@gmail.com wrote: However, I think that extra care may be needed in dealing with newbies who may only be taking a programming course using Python because of curriculum requirements. A lot of questions seem to come from college students

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread Mark Lawrence
On 02/10/2012 09:08, Alan Gauld wrote: I am glad you brought the subject up. I had been thinking of posting something similar. There have been a few outbursts of late, and we have seen some posts where the content was entirely aimed at improving the format of the message rather than trying to

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread boB Stepp
On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 7:25 AM, Francois Dion francois.d...@gmail.com wrote: Even worse would be the case of a young aficionado. It is very hard to infer the age of a person from a post. As Python is making inroads in the K-12 sector and through inexpensive computing platforms such as OLPC,

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread Alan Gauld
On 02/10/12 13:17, Mark Lawrence wrote: I do not intend helping anyone who insists on top posting despite requests not to do so. That is of course your prerogative, we can reply to, or ignore, whichever posts we choose. But we need to be realistic about top posting. It is the norm, and

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread boB Stepp
Leam, On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 4:04 AM, leam hall leamh...@gmail.com wrote: snip Does the welcome e-mail cover any of the recommended behavior? Are there easier ways to request participation within guidelines? Not only does the welcome message cover this, apparently when I posted my message

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread boB Stepp
On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 6:25 PM, boB Stepp robertvst...@gmail.com wrote: snip This is the beginning of exactly the same message I received when I first joined this mailing list. Honestly, newbie or not, I do not understand why many of the posts from newcomers so routinely violate the contents

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-02 Thread Steven D'Aprano
On 02/10/12 22:25, Francois Dion wrote: Even worse would be the case of a young aficionado. It is very hard to infer the age of a person from a post. Obligatory bash.org quote: http://bash.org/?14207 For those who don't know bash.org, it contains extracts of IRC and other chat logs. Many

[Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-01 Thread boB Stepp
I have been following the discussions here since middle-May of this year. I have gathered that the volunteers strongly value precision of speech and proper formatting of posts and especially making a strong effort to solve one's problem(s) before bringing it(them) up here for help. I think I

Re: [Tutor] Civil discourse from a newbie's perspective

2012-10-01 Thread Steven D'Aprano
On Mon, Oct 01, 2012 at 08:34:03PM -0500, boB Stepp wrote: I have been following the discussions here since middle-May of this year. I have gathered that the volunteers strongly value precision of speech and proper formatting of posts Some more than others, but yes. and especially making a