unsubscribing

[Bart Silverstrim]

Michael "TheZorch" Haney wrote:
> Bart Silverstrim wrote:

>> The original complaint about driving the newbie away, I don't know what 
>> part of the message you quoted was negative? It had a link and said to 
>> try the form at the bottom...what's wrong with that?
> My post wasn't for Brie Gordon but to the community as a whole, maybe I 
> should have been clearly on that.  It pertained to the guy's question 
> about installing Ubuntu.  He downloaded, didn't really know how to use a 
> .ISO file and Windows being Windows tried to open it with Notepad.  So, 
> let me be clear, this isn't about Brie Gordon's response on this thread, 
> but about the way people responded to this guy on his first one asking 
> for help.

I don't know about the thread you're citing (I think I saw the first one 
and pretty much knew the response tone since it's a question that only 
comes up, what, three times a week?); I predicted it would be a lot of 
"don't burn the file, burn the image", "Use something like Nero", 
"Google what an ISO file is"...

And you're right in that you probably should not have quoted that 
message to start trying to push even-handed replies to questioned 
perceived to be idiotic or inane if for no other reason than you 
probably gave a moment of offense to the poster you quoted when they 
were in the right. Thank you for the clarification on that though.

Third, I stand by my original assertions that this is one possible 
avenue for answers from volunteers in the community. If you want a 
greater guarantee to your questions, they they'll be "authoritative" and 
timely and are supposed to meet a particular standard, anyone is invited 
to join with the paid support from Canonical. No one on this list to my 
knowledge is paid to do this, and that means you pay a price by having 
to do some thinking and legwork on your own and others on the list are 
allowed a little leeway in relaxing their "public faces" and showing the 
occasional wart when a questioner is obnoxious or refusing to follow 
simple suggestions such as googling the initial problem.

If someone drops an attempt to use Ubuntu because of a mailing list's 
reaction (and of course the person asking the question is never guilty 
of instigating curt, rude responses, right?), then really they weren't 
looking to switch to Ubuntu in the first place. I've had my share of 
jerks answering my innocent questions, I've made misstatements and asked 
questions that were the result of brain farts, and I've tried living 
with my lumps for it. So I try to play by the rules of the community, 
such as:

GOOGLE first.
Describe the problem. More than just, "It doesn't work. This sucks."
Give descriptive Subject: line.

Some people are jerks. Deal with it. Other times I get fabulous help. 
Thanks. If I said "piss off" to the some activity every time something 
mildly offensive was hurled by someone having a bad day or because of my 
own thoughtlessness triggering a verbal slap, I'd never get out of bed 
in the morning.

-Bart