I agree as well. I am a newbie as well (not just to Xfree86 but also with Linux in general). I suspect that my experience with these newslist/communities is similar to many other newbies and was thinking of ways that it might be improved. Some sort of "Report" that newbies are required to fill out as they submit and get their problems answered may be beneficial to the community as a whole. I understand that more advanced users would find this experience tedious and restraining but speaking as a newbie, I think that it would prove to be very helpful for me. If I were forced to fill out fields of information, I might resolve my question before I even have to put it to the list. For example, what version of XFree86 am I using? What operating system? Which kernel? etc. Those type of questions could form the first part of the "Report". Next, might be a section on a statement of the problem. Then, perhaps, a section outlining any error messages that were given and a few lines from /var/log files... I believe that there are three main advantages to this: 1. Forces newbies to work through their problems systematically and ensures that they provide the specific information that will allow a more advanced user to make meaningful suggestions. As a newbie, I am not always sure which information is important to provide in a post and which is just extraneous. 2. The addtional structure and organization may make it easier for others experiencing similar problems to find an answer more efficiently. 3. It may encourage newbies to follow-up with how they resolved their difficulties. I, for one, would appreciate a more guided tour of the problem solving experience and if I knew that a follow-up was my "payment" for all of the helpful suggestions that I got along the way, I would be more than happy to give back to the community. To be completely honest, I am nervous about sending back a message that "such and such approach was successful" for fear that it was redundant and was just creating more "spam" on the list. Anyways, if you think that this is a good idea and are willing to put in a little time to make it happen, I would be happy to hear from you so that we can write up a more formal proposal. I apologize for yet another off-topic post but I think of it as "short-term pain for long term gain". Take care, geoff On Tuesday 04 June 2002 09:41, Christensen Tom wrote: > I would have to agree, I hate that about lots of forums/message boards I > visit, people will be discussing a problem, with suggestions, and the > person with the problem goes and tries this and that, and then after the > last suggestion there's just nothing.. did the last suggestion work? Did > the person just give up? There's no way to tell, unless you want to go > through and try everything in the whole message thread, and then see if it > fixes the problem. I do think as a community it should be understood that > when you get your problem fixed you should reply, and detail how you fixed > it, so that people with the same problem can see how to do it. > > > From: Dexter Filmore <Dexter.Filmore@gmx.de> > > >Reply-To: newbie@XFree86.Org > >To: newbie@XFree86.Org > >Subject: OT wrong attitude? was Re: [Newbie]Can't get mouse to work in X > >Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 15:19:46 +0200 > > > >On Mon, 03 Jun 2002 14:50:35 -0400 > > > >"Joel Limardo" <admin@j-enterprises.com> wrote: > > > I'll give that a try. If you don't hear from me again, it worked. > > > >Is it only me who thinks that this is not the right attitude among open > >source folks since there's a differnce between a community and a free > >supoort hotline? > > > >Dex > >_______________________________________________ > > > >Newbie@XFree86.Org > >*** To unsubscribe , or change message options, see: > >http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/newbie > > _________________________________________________________________ > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com > > _______________________________________________ > > Newbie@XFree86.Org > *** To unsubscribe , or change message options, see: > http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/newbie
