[Asterisk-Users] New User Questions (was: Computing horsepower needed)

[Timothy Costello]

On Dec 11, 2003, at 1:38 AM, Steven Critchfield wrote:
<lots deleted>
> If you look over the list again, you will see that questions that get
> ignored tend to get the entire list flamed for not being helpful.
>
> No one here tries to run people off but you will rarely see a message
> where we treat any one with kid gloves. If a person requires this kind
> of treatment, they will have to pay a vendor to deal with their system
> and their personality problems.
>
> As for the documentation complaint, just because there isn't a book
> called "asterisk for dummies" yet doesn't mean there isn't
> documentation. The current documentation requires work on the part of
> the newbie to get at. The wiki is fleshing out nicely. The old  
> handbooks
> still exist. There is over 2 years of mailing list traffic to document
> the system.
>
> Learning takes time and effort. Asking questions here short circuits  
> the
> time and effort. We answer these questions to help out, but sometimes
> our answers are meant to eliminate dead ends. Maybe they are not as  
> nice
> as you or others would like, but later when you have the knowledge to
> share you can decide how to dole it out. Extremely few of us have
> received our knowledge from source that aren't otherwise available to
> all. So you as well as everyone else here have a great chance of
> becoming a peer or better yet surpassing some of us.
> --  
> Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>
>

A couple comments. One reason people on the list get testy is that this  
comes up every 1-2 months:
http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/2003-November/ 
027775.html

and somewhere (maybe on the wiki) should be a link to ESR's "How to Ask  
Smart Questions": http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

I know it's been posted to the list several times. It should be part of  
the FAQ to read it before asking questions...

Later;
Tim