Re: List intolerance VS advocacy

[Dave Taira <bodhi@hagakure.org>]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Scott Sandeman-Allen (RSCorp) wrote:

> Please define 'contribution'. By that do you mean "only those that 'create'
> software?" That's like saying "I pay taxes so I 'do' own the road so get
> out of my way".

A contribution can be many things. It could be code, money, hardware, or
just brainpower. Questions that say "I didn't do my homework, can I copy
yours?" don't contribute anything. They are a drain.

> It is attitudes like this that feed the problem. While some newbie may not be
> $DEIGHITY's gift to coding, they may be excellent at documentation and
> interested in helping do so with some feature(s). Thus enabling someone with
> better skill to do more code/debug/$FUNCTION.

Well, great! Submit something for the FAQ. Submit a diff for a man page
you think could be clearer. Write up your own webpage about how you got
OpenBSD to work with the new Ronco IP DeFibrillator(tm) and post the URL.

> You lose because the community is weakened. In a volunteer organization, good
> help is hard to find. Nobody is superior, we just have different talents.

Well, with many volunteer organizations, there's a lot of work that just
about any warm body can do. They get a little training or instruction, and
they can do the task. OpenBSD doesn't have people to handle training.
Instruction is handled, for the most part, by the man pages, and the FAQ,
and sometimes, the mailing lists.

Yes, good help is hard to find. And lots of noise from people who aren't
willing or able to do some homework doesn't help anything.


> Besides, sometimes those "feature requests" are really good ideas.

So? Who's going to make them *happen*? There's a big difference between
"I've got this idea, and here's what I've done." and "When can you guys
make this work for me?". The first will rarely get flamed, and will often
get some discussion. The second will always get flamed.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dave Taira <bodhi@hagakure.org>                2002.06.13/14:23:37 PDT |
| Morlock for Hire                                                       |
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| TV doesn't make you stupid. God made you stupid.                       |
|                                                               --Andr00 |
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