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

[Steven Critchfield]

On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 22:33 +0100, Bruno Hertz wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 14:19 -0600, Steven Critchfield wrote:
> 
> > I truly do get excited when I see someone learn. I have no tolerance for
> > someone who expects to be spoon fed.
> 
> All right and well, but let me add a few points.
> 
> First, all those newbies are a bunch of free testers. More than you
> currently like, I'm sure, and maybe not always meeting your standards,
> but still - I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to have it the other way
> round, i.e. persistently dead lists, including no interest whatsoever.
> 
> Next, a certain percentage of those newbies will generate business,
> directly or indirectly for you too. So, feeding those newbies, even if
> they don't contribute in the narrow sense you defined, is still an
> investment which I'm pretty confident will pay off in the end in
> whatever way you might desire, hard cash or happy users.

As my income is related to health care, the only way a newbie is likely
to contribute is to get sick at a hospital or clinic we help support. As
I don't wish that kind of ill on anyone, they must contribute more
directly to be of any good use. 

Free testers usually test little but patience. I'll admit that even I
will occasionally sign up as a beta tester but only because I desire
early and free access to some neat software. 

> So, with all due respect, I gather what this project needs is a little
> more success management. Maybe it requires more or better docs, like a
> proper Howto or FAQ, or even better software which covers more standard
> situations out of the box. Or it maybe the time to split the user list
> according to protocols, hard- or softphones or whatever. You should
> know.

Then do you tolerate the SIP phone user who can't understand why when
they dial an extension it never completes. Some SIP phones implement a
rudimentary dialplan internally to know when to issue the dial command,
yet it could have issued it and asterisk didn't respond. Or it could be
that Asterisk told the phone to go somewhere else the phone couldn't
reach. You run into too many questions for newbie users to try and parse
and then you run into even more cross posting.

> But what I'm pretty much sure about is that you don't really want to
> repel new users, even if a certain percentage of them appears to be
> dumb.

I'm sure Firestone wished they could have repelled certain users who
couldn't figure out how to check tire pressure.... Remember there is a
difference between dumb and lazy. Dumb can be cured with knowledge, lazy
isn't likely to stop asking dumb questions. 

-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>