Re: [tlug] Lunatic Lynch-mob of Linux Losers

["Jedidiah Israel" <jedidiah.israel@example.com>]

Being a newbie, I found an interesting guide during a google search.
It seems relevant in the current situation.

http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/newbieguide.html

> From the newbieguide.html,
"Mailing lists are not democracies. Each list has its own personality.
The point here, is that if a newcomer wants help from the more
experienced, unless he is on a list like the appropriately named
Linux-Anyway list, where part of the idea is to not flame newbies for
violations of various rules of netiquette, but to (politely) educate
them, they will sometimes have to put up with what they consider
rudeness.

Now, when I say it's not a democracy, this also means that not
everyone has equal value to the list. You may be a wonderful person,
and the guru may be a horrible one who has no friends. Yet, the guru
has what people join the list to obtain--information.

So, let's take an extreme example. You've done your research, and you
post a question. The guru happens to be in a worse mood than usual,
and posts an insulting answer. You are offended by this, especially as
you feel you've done your research and angrily post something
back--however, because you're a wonderful person, even your anger is
polite and respectful.

However, the guru is in a totally rotten mood--remember, he's a
horrible person. He takes offense and decides to leave the list. You
might be thinking, good riddance, and anyone who read the exchange can
tell that I'm a much better person than he is--he made himself look
bad.

WRONG!!! You just deprived the list of one of its best resources. Yes,
he was horrible, but he had the knowledge--most people aren't joining
these lists for social reasons, they're joining because they want to
learn something. So, no matter how noble you acted, YOU were the one
who was wrong--the list could have afforded to lose you far more than
it could have afforded to lose him.

This sounds harsh, but it's actually true. Lists aren't
democracies--especially in the case of a technical mailing list,
you're almost better off looking at it as if you were in the army.
Neither you nor anyone else joined the list for a lesson in etiquette.
To return to our martial arts analogy--if it turned out that the
teacher was not a good person but was an excellent teacher, and your
purpose for joining the school was to learn the art, you stay there
and put up with whatever wrongs you see. The school will be better
able to deal with you leaving than with its teacher leaving. In a case
like this, though you may feel you have the moral right of it,
actually you don't--by causing the guru to leave the list, you've
taken a resource away from all the other people who learned from him.
You're far better off deciding the list is not for you, and finding
one like the linux-anyway one mentioned above, where you can make all
sorts of silly mistakes and only receive gentle reprimands. Especially
here in the USA, we seem to think we have a right to belong to a
mailing list--that's not the case. It isn't a right, it's a privilege.

I don't consider a mailing list to be a tyranny either--instead, I
would say that most lists are meritocracies. The guru may be a
horrible person or may be a saint. The important thing to the list,
however, is that he is a guru. He has earned his position on merit.
Therefore, it is to your advantage to recognize and respect this fact.

Back to our over used martial arts analogy--in more traditional
schools, beginners are taught by mid-level students, mid-level
students are taught by the senior students and the teacher only
bothers with the senior level students. If he takes the time to
correct a beginning student, that student is happy to be noticed, not
ready to criticize the teacher for not being nice.

This is a very important point--like the martial arts school, a
technical mailing list is a meritocracy. The gurus became gurus due to
their knowledge. The knowledge came from the extra effort that they
put into learning. They expect that effort from you, as well. You
might say, "Hey, you were a newbie too, once." They might answer,
"Yes, but when I was, I made an effort rather than expecting
everything to be handed to me." If one of the high level people says
you're doing something wrong, the important point is not how it was
said, but what was said. This person, even if he did it nastily, gave
some of his precious free time to help educate you. Rather than resent
it, appreciate it. IT professionals never have enough free time--if
they've stopped what they're doing to tell you that you're being
stupid or lazy--listen. The chances are very good that they're right
and you're wrong. Just look at it as tough love.

Such lists are actually quite helpful--if you enter into the spirit of
such a list, you won't post until you've made every effort to find out
the answer yourself. This pushing of yourself will often show you that
you had more capability than you'd thought. So, if you've gotten
flamed, don't take it too hard. Chances are that following some of
these principles, especially the one about attempting to first find
out the answer by yourself, will make your life a bit easier. If
you've decided to get involved in Linux, then, just as if you'd
decided to take a martial art, you've taken a certain amount of
responsibility upon yourself."

I enjoyed the document, the reasoning seems quite sound. Please give
it a glance over.

Cheers,
Jed