[Asterisk-Dev] RFC: Moderating the Asterisk Mailing Lists

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Gregory Junker wrote:

> > Precisely. I'm very very very much nicer to people who pay me money. That 
> > is, consulting clients or hosting customers. If you want free advice, you 
> > might get it, just don't expect me to be nice. :)
> 
> Then expect to lose a potential client due to inadequate people skills.  
> You never know who is on the other side of that keyboard, nor who they
> may or may not talk to.
To be frank, people who don't have money *or* clue are not in my target 
client category. Sure, that cuts down potential target client pool, but 
that's my business. You, on other hand, are very welcome to provide 
polite free advice to all comers. In fact (paraphrasing Randy Bush), I 
encourage all my competitors to do so.


> Actually, the "main" Asterisk developer I have found to follow what his
> Mom told him growing up. I do not recall Mark Spencer ever laying into a
> newcomer to Asterisk for asking a basic question. Might have something
> to do with Mark understanding that "the mic is always on", know what I
> mean?
Eh, Mark haven't posted to asterisk-users in ages, he just didn't have a 
chance! ;) [only kidding].

> I guess my point is that a lot of you need to get over yourselves.  
> Follow Mark's model: if you are not interested in answering someone's
> question in a courteous manner, then simply don't. "DTFG" and "RTFM" and
> non-directed pointers to arbitrary Wiki pages (or even worse, to the
> Wiki home page), and especially, "read the f***ing source code", do not
> fall under "courteous reply".
Since I stopped reading -users, this isn't really a problem ;) 

I think you underestimate value of pointing newbies to Wiki. A large
number of them never heard of it, so this *is* assistance. Maybe not like
giving fish to a man, nor even teaching a man how to fish, but at least
that's pointing them towards the water. ;)

-alex