Re: Attempts to ban constructive criticism...

[wbaguhn@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Baguhn)]

In article <4sf7ea$qm9@blackice.winternet.com>,
Nathan Mates <nathan@parka.winternet.com> wrote:
>In article <4sf58n$l16@nyx10.cs.du.edu>,
>Will Baguhn <wbaguhn@nyx10.cs.du.edu> wrote:
>>>I suggest that someone posts the usenet netiquette FAQ file here 4 times per
>>>year. Just quaterly, at the first of Jan, Apr, July, Oct.
>>>If someone can give me the address of the FAQ or send it to me, I'd be happy
>>>to read it, and make better postings.
>
>>I'd say it'd be safer to do it monthly.  Some people seem to forget it
>>that quickly.
>
>   Newbie questions should be (and are) answered in the right place,
>news.announce.newusers. What? Your news software doesn't start new
>users there? Why not? It should. Why haven't you emailed the author(s)
>of it to put in such a useful feature? [trn 3.4 has that; never
>bothered to deal with lesser pieces of software.]
>
>   You could post the FAQ weekly or even daily and there are those
>who'd still manage to miss it. Rec.humor has the FAQ posted there, and
>despite its inclusion in the list, I still send 20-50 emails per week
>telling people not to ask for specific jokes (blondes, lawyers, etc),
>but to grab the canonical list from ftp sites such as mine.
>
>   It may seem to be little extreme of a position for mid-1996, but
>I'm of the opinion that people should be forced to read the FAQ as a
>prerequisite for posting in a newsgroup. That'd reduce overall crud,
>repeated questions, and is an excellent starting point for diverting
>them to lists of online resources off usenet, such as the WWW. The
>5-25 minutes to read it will save that person and everyone far more
>time.
>
>Nathan Mates
>--
><*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
># What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
># Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
># think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein

I'm not so concerned with the "smart" newbies; I'm more concerned with the
AOL newbies who get on here and don't recognize the differences between
Usenet and AOL.  I'm concerned about people on freenets who think it's
just like another BBS that they call.  Also, I'm worried about the
people who've been around a while and may have forgotten how things are
supposed to work (nevermind that they'd probably killfile the FAQ
anyway).

Besides, how long has it been since an Apple2 FAQ was posted?  This is a
logical place to have it posted.  I haven't even read it lately... has it
been updated to answer questions like "Can I run Unix on my IIgs?
Can I run Linux on my IIgs?" etc.

That should probably appear monthly.  It might keep down on the
"go find the FAQ" things that we otherwise say...
-- 
                                      --- Rev. SPQR (wbaguhn@nyx.net)