[GRLUG] Now I;m getting a bit ticked.

[John-Thomas Richards]

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 10:03:10AM -0500, Tim Schmidt wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 9:08 AM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
> > Try searching Google for "plonk."  I'll give you a hint: it's the first
> > result shown.  Here's another hint: it's usenet term.
> 
> Was I the only one who, around 14 years ago, upon discovering the FOSS
> / *nix / Usenet / geek culture, read about it's history - jargon file
> included?

No; there were three that discovered it that year.  ;-)

> Knowing something about one's culture seems a necessary requirement
> toward participation in said culture.

Witness the vehement disagreement over proper posting etiquette on this,
a Linux (ostensibly, anyway) mailing list.  (I really hope that doesn't
generate any sort of response about netiquette.  Really, I don't.)  I
suspect many (most?) simply do not want to be bothered about learning a
culture or at least adapting to established rules of conduct.  It's the
September that never ended, now over fifteen years old.  (I wonder how
many will get that.)  I came to the Linux party four years into the
eternal September.  One of the best things I learned to do (by being
thwacked soundly) was subscribe to a list and watch it for a while to
discover what is acceptable/not acceptable and the common "tone" of
posts.  Some technical-oriented lists are tecnical *only* (absolutely no
off-topic posts).  Some, like this one, are fairly loose in what is
deemed off-topic (for example, the thread about building an electric
car).  Many do not want to take the time to learn.  Tell-me-what-I-need-
to-know-to-fix-my-game-system-or-I-will-throw-a-fit is prevalent because
people don't care to learn the right way to ask for help.

The real question I have been asking myself is how to deal with it.  Is
plonking someone the best way?  (Can I verbize 'plonk'?)  Politely
suggesting the proper way to ask questions to someone who is obviously
clueless about such things has not born much fruit.  Is it best to
simply ignore such people?  That seems to make the belligerent more
belligerent.  Do you thwack them publicly via the list and hope for the
best?  That, too, does not seem to bear much fruit.  Perhaps the best
thing is to try to help the ignorant (that is most assuredly not meant
as a pejorative) off-list.
-- 
john-thomas
------
Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is
oblivion.
Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)