At 04:12 PM 10/3/2000, you wrote:
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 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>