Reply-To: happy@dircon.co.uk (if you must)

Chris Ghormley wrote:
>I know there's a lag between posting a message and its being sent to the
>group, but could we start answering simple questions by direct email?
>Only one person should get an inbox full of 'me, too' messages.
--Although it's just possible other people might be interested anyway...

>I've been following this list for a few weeks now, and usually the noise
>is kept to a minimum, but today was really bad.  
--Poor thing. Let me get you an aspirin.

>I don't mean to whine,
--But you're going to anyway?

>but 
--See, knew you would... ;)

>it seems like many of these postings belong on other lists (specific
>application-usage threads) or should be answered by personal email, or
>shouldn't get asked at all (unavoidable RTFM responses).
>Thanks for your bandwidth.
--Not at all.

Ok - here's *my* opinion on the port-mac68k mailing list. 

An awful lot goes on that does not hit the mailing list: precisely *because*
people chat between themselves to sort things out. But you couldn't know about
that unless you ever took part in it.

Much of the stuff that is on the list doesn't, for whatever reason, interest me
at this exact time. I've developed a good method though for dealing with that.
I call it "Delete Key", and it works a treat.

"specific application-usage threads" - I'd say it's more usually "How in hell
do I configure this on netbsd then?" And the answer is often of interest to
more than just the one person. These threads often don't last too long anyway.

"[Questions that] shouldn't get asked at all (unavoidable RTFM responses)." In
whose opinion? Who decides what should and shouldn't be asked? 

One of the things I like about this list is that being a relatively smallish
community who contribute to it (afai can tell), it's very friendly. People are
always willing to answer questions regardless of how "stupid" they may seem,
and often offer further help by private email - which of course you wouldn't
see, so you're pushing a very one-sided argument, in my opinion.

Perhaps that makes this list unique? Who knows. But it's one of the most
friendly lists I know - there's no "unix-newbie" bashing going on, and
everybody seems keen to help out wherever possible with anybody else's problem.

It's my opinion that the atmosphere I detect on the mac68k mailing list makes
it a far more productive list on the whole than those where people are
frightened to ask questions just in case somebody comes along and slams them
for being out of line, or for breaking netiquette. We go through little phases
of being sidetracked (for want of a better word), but mostly you can just
delete anything with that subject line ("Re: Irrelevant waffle") if you're not
interested.

At the end of the day, we're all just netBSD mac68k users helping each other
out.

I see nothing wrong with that. As it happens, I think if we get to being a
strictly moderated list for development with no side issues ever allowed, this
list will die of tedium.

Hope I haven't wasted too much of *your* bandwidth, Chris.

John.

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The views expressed are the author's own opinion, and do not necessarily
represent the view or policy of the Company.

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          Date:     11-Apr-1996 02:06pm
          From:     John Herbert
                    HERBERTJ
          Tel No:   01923 664732
          Subject: Re: net etiquette