flame wars?

["Igor Gueths" <igueths@yahoo.com>]

Hi all. I am writing this to the entire list because someone is agreeing with Kerry on the following fact (s), and I hope that things can get straightened out.

Kerry brought up a rather interesting point today and yesterday. Her point was that she was trying to tell me, and possibly others on the list that people weren't looking through documentation before posting to the list. I just would like to state the fact that in terms of me, I don't use the list as a first resort. In my example yesterday about the user accounts, I didn't find a reference to userdel in the adduser man page. So I just thought that I would ask about it. She also brought up the fact that she thought that list traffic would be minimized if people stopped asking questions they could otherwise find in man pages and/or other documentation. I can tell you right now that this list doesn't even have a fraction of the traffic that a list like Debian-user or Debian-bugs has. I would estimate that they get about 100 messages or more per hour through these two lists. I was subscribed to Debian-user for some time, and I got back a couple of days later to check my mail and I had about 400 messages. So as far as I am concerned, list traffic is not an issue here. Also, I think that any question should be able to be asked and answered. For example, I read about the problems that Cheryl was having, and I decided to reply. I like to be helpfull, and to be able to share my knolige with people so that I can help them out. I can't say that this is a definite exactly, but in my opinion, Kerry seems to think otherwise. I don't know if she is trying to single me out here because of what I asked yesterday. Also, someone replied and added that they agreed with her about the stupid question thing. In other words, she stated that people should read docs and use the list as a last resort. I think that this is all well and true, but then she also said that users should be turned away from a list if some people think that the user is using the list as a first resort instead of reading documentation? I disagree with the last point. And I think that Anne will agree with me on this. Even if the poster hasn't read the docs before asking his/her question, reply to the message with an answer, and then tell them where they can get more information. This way, they learn where the documentation for their answer is available, plus they might find other useful information. Also, refrane from flaming posters just because they asked a question on a mailing list which in someone's opinion, the answer is readily available in a document. What I'm trying to say from all this is that we shouldn't start flaming users just because they ask "stupid" questions. Also, I want to make sure that I am not a target of such a flame. 


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