Re: Debain on the rise ! - However ....
On 2004-02-02, David Clymer penned:
> On Mon, 2004-02-02 at 13:32, W. B. Maguire II wrote:
>
>> >I think that genuine newbies who don't know how to find information
>> >in the first place, and may not know which domain applies to their
>> >particular problems, anyway, will end up posting to the "wrong" list
>> >anyway, and getting flamed for it ... causing more noise ...
>>
>>
>> Wrong, IMO! I think it is quite arrogant to dismiss a "newbie" list
>> because of an attitude that "newbies would be too dumb to find it!"
>> *I'm* a Debian newbie, and *I* spent the time to find-out which list
>> I should use for help on installing the distro! Just because I'm a
>> *Debian* newbie doesn't mean that I'm a complete idiot, and that
>> there's no use trying to split-off a list for new users like me!
>> Sheesh!
>>
>
> I think you read a bit more into that post than was intended. Who says
> you are a "genuine newbie"? Didn't you say you've been running RedHat
> for a year? If the shoe doesnt fit, don't wear it.
>
> Some newbies really don't know how to find information about linux,
> and the argument as I understood it was "lets not frustrate newbies
> and/or irritable gurus by making info/help any harder to find than
> necessary" not "newbies are too dumb"
This is exactly what I meant =) Far be it from me to call anyone
"dumb." I've had plenty of "special" moments myself ... search for
"disregard post re: sound!" in the January archives for proof.
I, not quite a newbie, would have a hard time choosing a list in which
to post many of my problems. I would also undoubtedly subscribe to
*all* of the possible lists, just to make sure I'm still somewhat in the
loop. So for me, the proposal of splitting up the list would almost
certainly inflate the amount of time it took to read debian lists,
rather than shrinking it.
>> >If there are many things you'd like to know about, why don't you
>> >post and ask about them? No one is forcing you to read through all
>> >of the myriad threads on this list. Just mark uninteresting threads
>> >"deleted" and move on. -- monique
>>
>>
>> It sounds to me that you imply that anyone who doesn't have a good
>> mail client just shouldn't bother with this list. I, myself, haven't
>> had the time to migrate to Mutt on my RH9 Linux box, so I'm
>> temporarily putting-up with Eudora on Win98 (even though I *hate* it
>> and Windows!). Once again, I find your attitude elitist. Fine,
>> maybe you and your *good* e-mail client can handle the volume on this
>> list, but what about me and my *Windoze-average/crappy* e-mail
>> client? If the new Linux user *must* run Mutt (or any other good
>> Linux client) to post to this group, then the majority of new Linux
>> users are excluded.
>>
>
> Again, I think you're being a bit touchy...what reference to email
> clients was made? I think what was intended was: "so what if there is
> a lot of noise, delete the stuff you dont care to read"
Again, you hit the nail on the head. I had no intention of being
elitist, although it's true that a mailer with threading support makes
one's life wrt mailing lists infinitely better. Personally, I use the
gmane portal to read debian-user as a newsgroup, which makes threading
support a no-brainer. I like the complete mental separation between
"community" mail and personal mail. W.B., if you would like info on
that approach, I'd be happy to help. In most situations, this will also
help you on the bandwidth side, if that's a concern.
I introduced my s.o. to mutt for the explicit purpose of dealing with
the massive amount of traffic on the linux-kernel mailing list, and he's
quite happy with how mutt works, despite having had no prior experience
with mutt. Of course, I cheated and gave him a copy of my .muttrc that
he could then tweak. If you think debian-user is busy and full of
bluster, try linux-kernel for a week =)
W.B., I'm not quite sure why you feel that you are trapped into using
Eudora. Even if you have to use Eudora for most of your mail, you could
create a separate account just for mailing lists. (Again, this is the
approach my s.o. used.) I seem to recall reading in the mutt mailing
list that there is, in fact, a version compiled for windows. I don't
know which version of windows, though, or whether or not you need cygwin
installed. But, assuming that you have the right to install apps on
your win98 machine, I think the gmane approach is probably your best
bet.
--
monique
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