From: Rich Kulawiec (rsk@gsp.org)
Date: Fri Jun 13 2003 - 14:47:52 EDT
[ I wrote this nearly a month ago. I held off sending it in the
interest of showing some restraint. However, things continue to
get worse, therefore... ]
This list is not a subsititute for basic Sun knowledge.
This list is not a substitute for reading a book on Sun system admin.
This list is not a substitute for RTFM.
This list is not a substitute for RTFFAQ.
Nor is this list a subsitute for Googling, or README files, or the
archives of relevant mailing lists and/or newsgroups, of the other basic
research tools that EVERY Sun system admin of EVERY experience level
should be willing and able to use. (If you're not, please go play with
the other lusers in M$-land. They're quite accustomed to deliberate
ignorance and massive incompetence over there. Here in the Unix world,
we expect people to be hard-working, self-educating and clueful.)
But the increasing number of entry-level questions here that demonstrate
(a) failure to read the FAQ for this mailing list
(b) failure to search the archives of this mailing list
(c) failure to self-educate
(d) failure to conduct ANY research of ANY kind
is getting out of hand.
This is compounded by obvious beginner questions which are answered in
all introductory texts, vague questions, open-ended design questions
(which are not appropriate for this list - see FAQ), questions which omit
relevant information necessary for assistance, questions which are
borderline-illiterate, questions about certification (off-topic),
questions about jobs (off-topic), and questions which have already been
answered a dozen times in considerable detail -- and whose answers
are ALREADY contained in the archives of this list, just waiting for
everyone to do what they should do: search the archives FIRST.
Add to that the pathetic quality of most of the summaries, which are
often not properly marked as "SUMMARY", don't restate the question,
don't actually summarize the responses and often are just a random
concatenation of responses including all the headers and other
useless boilerplate. And that's if a summary appears *at all*;
most of the questioners these days don't even bother. That's selfish,
rude and unacceptable. (If you don't want to prepare a proper summary,
per the FAQ, then DON'T ask a question. If you do ask a question,
then you are obligated to repay the professional assistance that you're
getting at no charge by preparing an adequate summary for everyone else.)
As a result of all this, many of the senior people who used to answer
lots of questions often don't bother any more. (If they're even
still subscribed.) This means when truly difficult questions which
*are* appropriate for this list, and which are NOT answered in the
FAQ/archives/etc., come up, the very people who could answer them are
the same people who have given up in disgust.
Heck, a few weeks ago, someone was actually brazen enough to
publicly admit that he couldn't be bothered to RTFM -- on the "Subject"
line of a message. (I hope nobody bothered to help him: he certainly
didn't deserve it.) This morning's mail shows such rudimentary
inquiries as "how do I use grep?" and "where do I get Netscape"?
Such questions are a complete waste of the time of the members
of this mailing list. They could have easily been answered in
two minutes by the questioner simply by using basic research skills.
So stop it. Go read the FAQ, go buy a book on Sun admin, go bookmark
the relevant resources (starting with the archives of this list), and
use this list only as a last resort AFTER you have done your own research.
And when you use this list, use it properly: RTFM/RTFFAQ/RTFarchives
first, explain your problem clearly and in complete sentences, include
all relevant information (including version numbers, error messages, etc.),
and make *darn sure* you write an acceptable summary when you're done.
---Rsk
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