Re: apple macintosh plus; startup disk

[CUTjefbla@bconnex.net (Jeff Blakeney)]

On Wed, 21 Apr 1999 02:36:15 GMT, Randy Shackelford
<shack@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:

>Actually, since articles like this are typically cross posted to a slew
>of Mac groups as well, there's no guarantee that the poster will read your
>followup unless you post to the same groups.

First, the message in question was only posted to this newsgroup.

Second, if the person is going to post a question and not go back to
every newsgroup to check for replies, if they miss a reply it is their
loss.  Usenet is not a forum to ask questions that get replied in
e-mail.  Usenet is a question AND answer forum and many people can
benefit from the question that one person asks once.  This is better
than having many people ask the same question many times and people
having to send the same answer to many people many times.

>That'd make zero sense and get you flamed of course.

That is possible if the message was cross-posted and the person
replying didn't notice it.  Just one of the dangers of posting to
usenet.  :-)

>An email reply is guaranteed to get to the poster.

And the info in that e-mail reply will help no one else.  If the
person replying is so inclined, they can always send a copy by e-mail
as well but it isn't a requirement.  I just recently removed the
request in my signature to e-mail me stuff if you wanted to make sure
I saw a reply because I had a crappy news server.  My new news server
seems better.

>Trying to deter future posts, which is of course a lost cause. People will
>always post nothing useful and complain about being in the wrong group.

Like your posts celebrating Nathan's absence and posts complaining
about people pointing someone who is in the wrong newsgroup to the
proper place to get their question answered by people who know what
they're talking about?

Not every Apple II users is also a Mac user. In fact, I'd say 50% or
more of the readers of this group don't own a Mac at all.  Why should
we have to read questions and answers about Macs (which happens pretty
much every day even now) when we don't own the machine or have any
interest in it?

Also, keep in mind that the last time I check there were over 40
newsgroups specific to the Mac and us Apple II users only have 6; a
few more if you include binaries and emulator groups.

Personally, I think you would be doing a user a disservice by not
letting them know that this isn't the appropriate place to ask
questions about something rather than pointing them to the place that
will yield them more and probably better quality answers than they
would get here.  I know I'd be upset if no one pointed that out to me.

>Unless the poster is asking a Win/PC question, in which case someone will
>cheerfully answer the question without complaining. People typically only
>complain if it's a Mac question posted inappropriately.

I'd be very interested if you could back this claim up.  I'm still
trying to remember the last time I saw a Win/PC related question
posted in this newsgroup, let alone one that was answered
"cheerfully".

The ratio of Win/PC to Mac post in this newsgroup is probably well
over 1 to 50.

Well, now that I have that off my chest, and it isn't the first time
I've made these points, I'll try to keep myself from repeating these
points again in the future.

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