Re: Literal postings, was Re: Wanted - Debian(preferred)/Linux handheld
On Sun 19 Aug 2018 at 08:30:40 (+0200), Anders Andersson wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 6:42 PM, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > . A lot of OPs provide very little background information. Sometimes
> > this may be because they don't know what *is* relevant, but often a
> > thread turns into an episode of "Twenty Questions" because of what
> > seems like a reluctance to reveal any facts about their system.
> >
> > . Following this, when the OP apparently "disappears" after making
> > their first post, people are left little option but to make guesses
> > about what their problem might be caused by.
>
> In my opinion, the *proper* course of action is then to ask for more
> information instead of guessing. If OP then does not reply, then
> there's no need to keep going.
Many people make the assumption that if one person has a problem,
others are quite likely to, so the question may still be worth
pursuing. If you don't want to partake in it, that's fine.
(Brian has covered the situation where people think they have
some sort of proprietorial control over the direction threads drift.)
> I believe that my views on this have changed after the Stack Exchange
> network of websites sprung up. It makes such a huge difference in
> clarity when bad questions are forcibly closed until corrected.
Then head over there. I just checked: they have 2,625 questions
awaiting their first answer. But it's a different animal, run by a
company with hundreds of employees and tens of millions of dollars.
I use it all the time via google. Why try to duplicate it here?
This list has a completely different philosophy, see:
https://www.debian.org/MailingLists/
It's unmoderated and the postings are not tweaked into some sort of
conformity. A huge history of the Debian project has built up with
archives stretching back over two decades.
Cheers,
David.
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