Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> __/ [ John Bokma ] on Saturday 20 May 2006 15:43 \__
[ .. ]
> 2003. What's rather shocking is that some of these first message I
> sent from OE (I was bored at work) and I even top-posted. The first
> post was sent from Mozilla Mail.
I used nn, ages ago. I asked now and then in my first posts to email me
:-D. OTOH, I often promised to post a summary back (back in those days
that was ok, and done now and then).
I downloaded pictures from a Boris Vallejo calendar (save post -> ASCII,
and at home in an editor, glue the data together and then UUdecode :-D )
and missed out a part. I asked people to email the missing part. And
some did. So I had over 1 MB of email, back in those days that was, eh,
special. The BOFH asked me WTF I had done, since I had received more
email then most staff members in a year :-D
> A close friend of mine was more keen and he posted to UseNet (unaware
> of the consequences) back in 1997/8-ish, when he was about 16. He
> posted some poor and careless messages in haste. He addressed sound
> card, music, and games newsgroup. He wasn't too excited when I showed
> him Google Groups' 'catch' a couple of years ago. He never knew it was
> bound to become public, just like many others (gb<number> from
> alt.www.webmaster?).
The gb<number> and many similar guys (Xah Lee, Daniel Joseph Min, etc)
don't care much about that IMO. Some probably have no idea what they are
doing, and others really do know what they are doing, and love it.
I don't follow aww anymore, but I have reported gb quite often, and each
time it stopped for a week or two even.
Xah will probably adjust his posting behavior soon. Word has it that his
hosting provider asked him to move on :-D. For a confused POV by the
troll himself:
http://www.xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html
>> Yup, so much for the community support of OS. Which is not wrong IMO,
>> I mean, it makes it possible for professional support on OS, and
>> hence makes OS easier to accept in companies.
>
> Very true. To be honest with you, I post over 50 messages per day to
> Linux newsgroups. It makes everyone happy.
Good :-) I try to contribute in OS, but its always quite small. I
recently wrote a nice report on a bug in a Perl module (or modules),
complete with test script.
Also, when I bump into something weird, I try to write about it.
>> I doubt it has much to do with that, I mean, you think people refuse
>> to help because an employee of a big question asks for help? That's a
>> silly assumption. I think it has more to do with: if you want this
>> one answered, hire me. In the perl group I see now and then people
>> asking for a complete solution. It takes too much time.
>
> Yes, exactly. But, you see, when some large budget company sends an
> employee to UseNet, you can't help but think that you could be hired
> to tackle the problem or complete the task.
Some can, and will do. Especially if it's a large problem. But I am
afraid it's not easy to find a real expert on, say, Apache, in a short
time, who is also available.
> I am very much in favour
> of hose who have problem and cannot seek help elsewhere. It is often
> the case with community-driven software and personal Web sites.
Yup, but also with paid for closed software :-) Some companies give
excellent support (I have experience with some of those, a phone call,
and you're talking with one of the developers who emails you a fix in 2
hours), others suck at it big time. OTOH, I have similar experience with
the latter with OS. Patches that are ignored, or not considered worthy.
With some projects you bump into an ego that can support 10 assholes,
but somehow mother nature managed to put it in a single person. (And you
know how mother nature is, everything goes exponentionally).
--
John Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Firefox RSS: http://johnbokma.com/firefox/rss-and-live-bookmarks.html
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