Re: [tlug] "TLUG, Meet Husi, Husi, Meet TLUG"

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Sargent <powderkeg@example.com> writes:

    Mark> I think that this is terribly outdated.

Nah, you just joined the Internet late enough to lack perspective.
This hasn't changed.

    Mark> There are so many different GURUS out there now, and a lot
    Mark> who DO NOT visit a vast majority of other lists/forums etc.

First, let me point out that that's a very one-sided way to look at
it.  By shotgunning the various fora, you lessen the incentive for
them to merge, because it's likely that similar answers will be posted
in several of them.  Yes, it's expensive to work out the best places
to ask a question and try them in order, but that's _not_ wasted
effort and patience.  It's an investment in maintaining the society
that is providing you with the 'net and human resources you seek.

Second.  That's what they were saying in 2000, in 1995, and in 1990.
(I wasn't on Usenet in 1985, and in 1980 they weren't saying it yet,
but that was before the Great Renaming so The World Really Was
Different[tm] then.)  But you know what?  There are at least two dozen
people smarter/better informed than me that I've run into on lists/
newsgroups a priori unrelated to the one where I met them first.
Nope, uh-uh, let's not piss them off.  (Well, feel free, but I'm not
gonna!  I need all the help I can get.)

Of course, in a pragmatic sense what you say is very true, and it's a
real problem.  Guess what?  There's a one-word answer: Usenet
(netnews).  Kinda out of fashion these days, like most real solutions.
(Cross-posting as such is not a problem on Usenet, because messages
are linked from a global pool, instead of being copied to each
newsgroup.  Cross-posting is frowned on, but because it is correlated
with trolling and other forms of OT posting, not because it's
technically wasteful and impractical.)  And the fact that much useful
content is not on Usenet is a real problem too. :-(

So what's a self-respecting vampire to do?  Of course---you cross-post
to the various lists.  How?  *Very carefully* as the saying goes.  Or
"Kids, these stunts are enacted by professionals.  Don't Try This At
Home."  Just kidding, but do remember that you're breaking the rules,
that people whose opinion you care about (and may not know it yet)
will form a bad opinion of you if your reason doesn't come up to
snuff, etc, etc.

In other words, don't do the right thing for the wrong reason.  You've
identified a valid class of exception, but it's still the exception,
and the rule is still valid.

-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.