On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 23:13:49 -0800, Scott Hirsch <ww(_at_)windworld(_dot_)com>
wrote:
Thanks for all who voiced their frustration at finding a shortage of
basic newbie info on Procmail and Smartlist, and who kindly replied with
offers of help.
In reference to this general topic, it surprises me that nobody has
yet (as far as I've noticed) mentioned Nancy McGough's "Filtering Mail
FAQ". This is a very thorough, very easy (albeit detailed)
step-by-step instruction for getting started with Procmail (among
other programs).
SARA YOUNG, <syoung(_at_)actcom(_dot_)co(_dot_)il>, who has graciously
volunteered to
help write a FAQ, I will be sending her some questions to respond to in
the coming days and hope that they will be the beginning of a FAQ that
some of us need so badly. I think we could all contribute to a FAQ with
our particular expertise as well as our questions. The idea is to cover
the obvious and the basic. The fine points are already addressed
elsewhere.
I've been working on a FAQ although it's not quite ready for prime
time yet (as a matter of fact I only recently got around to actually
writing something, but I've been intending to for a long time :-)
Anyhow, I think all FAQ efforts should stay at least minimally
coordinated. There's nothing wrong with several "competing" FAQs but
the people maintaining them might want to avoid +unnecessary+
duplication.
Anybody volunteer to coordinate? :-)
In reference to the general discussion about help for newbies, well,
I'm no guru, but I see easy questions that I could answer all the
time, and all the more often. However, all too often I just assume
that these newbies are getting competent help in private e-mail.
I think most of the oldies on this list (that doesn't include me,
I've been on for less than a year :-) can leave a standing offer to
help out but you have to be a bit persistent if you don't receive help
immediately. NOTE WELL that "persistent" in this case definitely
doesn't mean you have the right to assume you'll get help and start
acting annoyingly when you don't. Those who do will merely have
themselves added to a lot of kill files.
This is an interesting netiquette issue because on one hand, you want
to help out, but on the other hand, answering newbie questions on the
list is mostly counter-productive (adds volume without adding +real+
content -- after all, mostly it'll be reiterations of stuff that is
already in the manual pages).
This list used to have a very good reputation but I can see the
signal/noise ratio get worse day by day. I think a lot of that could
be done away with with a good FAQ.
Another thing that comes to mind would be a good "welcome to the
list" message. I have the feeling list maintenance is hibernating
(aren't we all, around Xmas like this) but as soon as a good FAQ gets
done, I think it would be a good idea to have a pointer to the FAQ
included in some sort of first-time poster welcome message.
Maybe the list could even have a welcome-bot like some of the bigger
newsgroups?
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