Thought I'd share this with you before unsubscribing, sorry about this.... Will unsubscribe now. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charlie Summers" <charlie@lofcom.com> To: "Jelmer Jellema" <Jelmer@spininhetweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 8:34 PM Subject: Re: No bounce-detection
At 1:36 PM -0400 10/3/00, Jelmer Jellema is rumored to have typed:
This one not to the list:
Good thing, too - at least you are only embarassing yourself with your witty reparte in front of me, and not before the rest of the list as well.
Charlie
You know: I just think it's so much a shame when smart and otherwise interesting people get in stupid arguments on email lists. The shame is not that smart people come off like total idiots in flame fests, but that those who could have been helped to use smartlist go away unhelped. The flame to information and signal to noise ratios here are really wacked, and I'd encourage those persons who are intent on being merely uncivil or proving how much more they know than do others to move their great quest for superiority and incivility to alt.flame or something. You may be really an amazing admin with years of experience around mail, but you aren't showing what an amazing human you are when you flame those persons who ask stupid questions. You, too, were stupid once. You did not know what m/^$/ represented when you left the womb. Please pardon my soliloquy(sp) here, but I can't help but note how odd it is that people coming here for help leave here much crisper and with more carbon than when they started. I just think it's too bad. Respectfully and Humbly, Dan Kappus
At 4:12 PM -0400 10/3/00, Dan Kappus is rumored to have typed:
The shame is not that smart people come off like total idiots in flame fests, but that those who could have been helped to use smartlist go away unhelped.
Perhaps some people aren't as interested in help as they are in making a fuss. Or in not honoring private responses, while carefully forwarding only those parts that do _not_ embarass themselves.
You may be really an amazing admin with years of experience around mail,
Um, for the record, I never said that. Nor did I call myself a "unix expert." Are you sure you don't have your targets reversed?
but you aren't showing what an amazing human you are when you flame those persons who ask stupid questions.
I do _not_ flame those who ask "stupid questions," nor did I ever suggest I was or wanted to be an "amazing human." Please go back and read my original reply to Mr. Reisberger carefully - the only people I flamed were those IPPs who shove their support onto this list. My original message to him dealt specifically with something _he_ said, not Mr. Jellema; heck, I thought Werner did a nice job of front-line help (check the log), and so wasn't thinking about Mr. Jellema at all. I admit I did use publically-available information about Mr. Jellema's posting provider as an example, because it was handy, but I was not frankly talking to him at all in my reply, rather I was talking to Mr. Reisberger and other old-time members of this list, hoping to solicit comment on the recent trends in the questions here. As to my replies to Mr. Jellema, both public and private (oh, right, even my private response was made public without my consent, so there's not much difference, is there?) they were crafted specifically because of his indignation, the excuses he made for same, and his later private comments to me which I will _not_ discuss. Please note he was replying to a message that was not targeted to him, and for some inexplicable reason decided to take everything I said in my reply to Mr. Reisberger personally. (Indeed, he is _still_ sending me email about all of this, which I am currently ignoring.)
Please pardon my soliloquy(sp) here, but I can't help but note how odd it is that people coming here for help leave here much crisper and with more carbon than when they started.
There are _many_ people who ask "stupid questions" (by that I assume you mean asking novice questions, since there really can't be any such thing as a "stupid" question, only stupid humans) who receive more help than you can possibly imagine from me, up to and including helping them rewrite recipies and the like. Like I said before, ask. Not _everyone_ becomes crisped by my keyboard; I try to teach _anyone_ interested in learning how SmartList works. I admit I tend not to help those who want me to do it _for_ them, but if they're willing to learn how to fish, I'm willing to hold their hand on the bank. (And as an aside, if you think I'm flaming people in my postings here, it's obvious you've never seen a true flame war. I don't pump out enough heat, comparatively speaking, to light a cigarette.) The people I have little tolerance for are those who suddenly freak out for no good reason, directing their attack at me. And I will completely stand by my original points; within the last few weeks there have been an unusually high number of people saying both publically and privately that their provider gives them SmartList but does not support it, and directs them to this list. That shifts support costs onto us, and is simply wrong. You're welcomed to disagree with me, of course, and I'd love to hear your comments on _that_ subject, but the rest of this is a red herring. (And my thanks to those people, whom I will not name, who have sent me supportive email. Unlike some people, I am honorable enough _not_ to make private email public, but I thank you just the same.) Ok, I'm done with this, since I'd rather spend time helping people who want to learn than justify what seems perfectly reasonable to me. I will not respond on this matter again, so everyone may feel free to have the last word. Charlie
You know:
I just think it's so much a shame when smart and otherwise interesting people get in stupid arguments on email lists. The shame is not that smart people come off like total idiots in flame fests, but that those who could have been helped to use smartlist go away unhelped. All this may very well be true, but some folks CHOOSE to go away unhelped! I certainly hope you aren't referring to Charlie Summers here. I, too, was hosted on a server that provided "mailing
At 04:12 PM 10/3/2000, you wrote: lists". Although I asked for list software that I was already familiar with in negotiations to move my domains to them, I was assured that what they had (Smart List) was "much better" than what I had been using. Got there and found that NO ONE knew squat about the list software, other than to point me to the web interface that said "click here to install mailing list software". Once I did that, I had SmartList installed, but no idea what to do with it, other than to "make a list" from the console again.
You may be really an amazing admin with years of experience around mail, but you aren't showing what an amazing human you are when you flame those persons who ask stupid questions. You, too, were stupid once. You did not know what m/^$/ represented when you left the womb.
I found this list serve and I mostly lurk, but my "newbie" questions prompted answers from Charlie. We spent several occasions with me sending answers to his questions, so he could answer MY questions on the level I was on (WAY low!). Although I could sometimes sense his exasperation with me, he persevered and in doing so, got my list working the way I want it (more or less), taught me many things about the list in specific and Linux/Unix in general and encouraged me to learn Unix - which I am now doing. For all my experience in computers - from DOS to NT SBS - I was almost afraid to dip my little toe in the big Unix Pond. I had been scared off because it did not make sense. Thanks to Charlie, it made more sense and I'm off and running.
Please pardon my soliloquy(sp) here, but I can't help but note how odd it is that people coming here for help leave here much crisper and with more carbon than when they started. I just think it's too bad.
Maybe so, but had I been so arrogant as to think I knew more than I did, or so thin skinned that I had run away because he nailed me for not sending the diagnostic data to help him answer my question, I'd still be Unix ignorant and I'd either not have a mailing list at all, or one that doesn't work as I need it to. I would encourage folks who write to humble themselves and stick with it. I was communicating from a DOS background with someone about a Unix product and it took us a while to find a level of communication that worked, but we did. Liz Logan PS I also happen to agree with the comments expressed that the hosting providers should NOT be offering something as part of their package, then send the users elsewhere to scratch out whatever support they can get, especially since the people here are talking in command line language, and the newbies (like myself) are coming here with "when I click here in the control panel" type of questions. PSS - to Charlie - sorry for quoting so much <G>
participants (4)
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Charlie Summers -
Dan Kappus -
Jelmer Jellema -
Liz Logan