Quality of Ubuntu List

[Amedee Van Gasse (ub)]

On Sat, October 10, 2009 18:01, David McNally wrote:
> Hi again.
>
> Just to clarify, I did not really say anything about Windows forums. Back
> when I used Windows and couldn't get help from Microsoft, I joined one of
> those forums and recieved no useful help, and only recieved replies about
> how little I knew about Windows and how stupid I was for not being able to
> figure out where Microsoft moved all of the control panel settings in
> Vista.
> (Remember, of course, that these Windows users are probably trying to find
> the "Any" key on their keyboard.)
>
> When I started running into problems in Ubuntu, I ran across this mailing
> list. After reading about how much closer Linux users were as a community,
> I
> decided it couldn't be as useless as Windows forums I had tried in the
> past.
> Lo and behold, years later, I have never had an unsolved problem, thanks
> to
> this great mailing list.
>
> So, yes, there are Windows mailing lists. What makes a mailing list good
> is
> the people who use it. The people here are much nicer than the people on
> any
> Windows forums or mailing lists.
>
> Thanks.

I don't know about web forums, or general newsgroups, but I have always
found highly specialized newsgroups about Excel very helpful. Probably
because they had MVP's. A Microsoft Most Valued Professional is someone
form the user community, not a MS employee, that is recognized by
Microsoft for the work that they do for the community. It's something that
started on CompuServe.

Usually these people also are authors of well respected books. You can
find The Big List here: http://www.mvps.org/links.html