[asterisk-users] Asterisk GUI

[Tom Rymes]

On Jun 19, 2007, at 12:37 PM, Senad Jordanovic wrote:

> Tom Rymes wrote:

[snip]

>>
>> How many times does it have to be said? Don't feed the trolls!
>>
>> Tom
>>
>
> Tom...Who in your opinion is a troll?
>
>
> Senad

Well, technically, I was calling the original post a troll, not the  
original poster. More specifically, the usage of troll I am referring  
to resembles the fishing technique more than the mythological  
creature. Basically, a troll in this context is a post that someone  
makes simply for the purpose of starting a heated discussion on a  
very touchy subject. In other words, the original poster is  
"trolling" for people who will get all bent out of shape about their  
post and fire back a heated response.

For example, a user could post a message to the list asking "I'm new  
to Linux and Asterisk. Should edit my dialplan by hand, use FreePBX,  
or buy a commercial solution?" Imagine the response as you tried to  
convince them to buy PBXWare, FreePBX users try to convince them that  
they should start out using FreePBX, and others go on about how hand  
coding a dialplan is the one-true-way® to learn Asterisk. Generally,  
the original poster is just looking to get everyone stirred up over  
nothing.

In other words, Paul's original post of "GUI bad! CLI good!" was just  
the sort of post that is going to get folks fired up re-re-restarting  
the age-old discussion of which is better: CLI or GUI. Basically, it  
could be like posting any of the following:

- Which is better: emacs or vi?
- Which linux distribution is the best?
- Which is better: Macs or Windows?

All of these questions share the following:

1.) They have no right answer (macs are better for some, Windows for  
others, and linux for others still, not to mention OS/2, BSD, etc)
2.) People on the various sides of the debate have extremely strong  
feelings on the matter
3.) Nobody is likely to be convinced that the other side is right and  
that they are wrong.
4.) They have all been discussed thousands of times before, and  
nothing new is likely to be said on the matter.
5.) The only purpose served by the discussion, due to the reasons  
above, is to clutter up the mailing list.
6.) Any discussion thread regarding these sorts of topics is best  
avoided.

For a more thorough description of an internet troll, see the  
following wikipedia article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_% 
28internet%29

In other words, if you see a post that is just going to result in a  
re-rehashing of the last rehash of a specific subject, just hit the  
delete key instead of clogging up the mailing list with yet another  
thread on whether a GUI or a CLI is better. (for example).

In Paul's defense, it looked to me like his original post was simply  
a joke that was misunderstood. (I thought it was funny, anyway)

I suppose I should take my own advice on this one, but sometimes I  
guess we all just can't resist. <grin>

Tom