[Asterisk-Users] List tips for new subscribers <--sorry for 2 nd post, missed this.

Colin Anderson ColinA at landmarkmasterbuilder.com
Wed Feb 23 10:43:38 MST 2005


2 parts, 1 to Andrew, 1 to Mr Critchfield:

Andrew's part follows:

>If I am having a particularly bad day I might 
>jump the re-offender part but that is *very* infrequent and I often
apologize 
>publically afterward.  We are, after all, all human.

First of all, thanks for the well-reasoned response. I think you hit on the
key phrase there, "We are, after all, human". There are a couple of
different aspects to this:

1. There is an element of sour grapes on behalf of noobs who get offended by
flames and take it personally, as evidenced by the bitching, some justified,
some not. Taking things personally is a mistake that *everyone* has to work
through, and my personal epiphany was realized around the time that I became
a BBS junkie on my 1040ST with a 300bps acoustic coupler. That was almost 20
years ago. Some people take a bit longer than that. (after all, they are
only human) So, try to give them leeway. There are other ways to drive your
point home instead of flaming. (not you, specifically, but I have seen it
and have had it pointed at me, as well) 

LESSON FOR NOOB: Don't take it personally. Ask for help in the fashion that
you would be asked. Make sure you have Linux 101 under your belt. 

2. The guy who flames (I was going to say "flamer" but, holy crap, can you
imagine the jokes) again, is only human, and maybe he is having a bad day,
his dog died, etc. You never know. Sometimes he may well just be a jerk.
Guys who flame have to come to the realization that there is give and take.
Their part in subscribing to this list is to help, if they choose. You can't
help by immediately pouncing on the guy for not inline-posting, by saying
"Google for it you idiot" etc. I understand the argument about not
researching, but how does the poster convey whether they have done so or
not? You don't know. Sometimes, I see a guy get flamed simply because he's
not a native english speaker, and he can't correctly articulate what he is
asking for. 

LESSON FOR PRO: Leave your ego at the door. Realize that, yes, people ask
shortcut questions and there are some VC types on the list that want the $$$
but don't want to do the work. Ignore them. Carry on. When you flame, all
you do is create chaos, bitching and ill-will. Remember, you are doing this
because you love it and you care. If you hate -users (and users in general),
why are you on the list? The word USERS is an INCLUSIVE term, not EXCLUSIVE.


Mr. Critchfield's part:

First of all, that was an outstanding counterpoint you posted. Time and time
again, you show that you are the smartest person on the list. I'm not trying
to kiss your ass (sounds like it though!), it's pretty evident that you are.
You've also doled out your fair share of flames.

>Why evangelize to those who have already at least put forth the effort
>to get here? You also don't increase mindshare here, you do that at your
>LUG or other networking levels. 

It's naive to think that this list isn't monitored by Cisco or Nortel or
whatever VoIP player/carrier/ILEC/CLEC is the flavor of the month. Don't you
think that it's important that the list comes across as serious, with a
focus, and committed? At best, it *may* introduce Asterisk mindshare into
these organizations, if only to improve their own product offerings, and at
worst, it will destroy Asterisk credibility in those organizations because
of apparent infighting.

>Fortune 500 companies are lemmings. They don't tend to go out on a limb.
>It is rare that a fortune 500 made it where they did by being very
>innovative. If the CTO of a fortune 500 made it here, he probably is
>only doing it for fun. The CTO would  have delegated down about 3 levels
>of management before it hit someone who needs to do real work.

So that third level manager who does the work gets flamed on the list, and
exactly the same thing happens - he says to his CTO: "Asterisk is a joke,
all they do it bitch about HTML emails on the list" and the platform missed
that opportunity for adoption. Quite true about Fortune 500 and lemmings,
but let's say, .5% of them are the ones that are innovators. That's 25
*huge* installs and will answer another noob question on the list: "Where
are the big Asterisk installs?"




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