Xfmedia 0.8.0 released!

Brian J. Tarricone bjt23 at cornell.edu
Thu Jul 14 05:40:22 CEST 2005


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Right up front, I'll say this thread needs to die.  But of course I
can't resist replying...

Gavin Chester wrote:
> Don't let the "question nazis" get you down.  Any good list is well
> populated by patient people who don't mind giving three minutes of their
> day to help someone - they are the ones who remember how confused they
> used to be at certain things.  Unfortunately, there are some who
> consider that they are far too important, so the question is: why do
> they waste their time writing a flame?  And, after all, what's a mail
> list for if not to ask questions about the app. 

Sorry, but "What is X?" is not a question about an app[1].  My initial
reply wasn't an attempt to belittle, but to keep the signal to noise
ratio high.  The existence of the further replies to this thread seems
to prove that failed.

I'm a firm believer in a theory put forth in "How to Ask Questions the
Smart Way"[2][3], that inflammatory responses to allegedly-useless
questions on the list serves a purpose for the list itself:

"When that hacker tells you that you've screwed up, and (no matter how
gruffly) tells you not to do it again, he's acting out of concern for
(1) you and (2) his community."[4]

In other words, I (personally) don't want this list turning into a place
where useful questions and discussion about Xfce are drowned out by
silly questions that someone with five minutes and a web browser can
figure out on their own.[5]

	-brian

[1] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#id3002488
[2] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
[3] Admittedly, at some times the piece reads like a arrogant, stuck-up
manifesto.  I've learned to expect this from ESR, but his message often
(like in this case) has merit.
[4] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#not_losing
[5] On a side note, the original poster complained that they learned
some things from the posted answer that wasn't answered on the website.
 Fine, but *those questions were not asked in the original post*.  The
original question itself was easily self-answerable via Google.  Noise,
not signal.

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