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

[Tim Schmidt]

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 10:36 AM, John-Thomas Richards
<jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 10:03:10AM -0500, Tim Schmidt wrote:
>> 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.  ;-)

Oh, good.  More than I expected.  :)

> It's the September that never ended, now over fifteen years old.

No f#%king joke.

> 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.

Right.  I see this on forums a lot - a major reason I avoid them
(well...  that, and having to log into 20 different websites just to
see that no one's responded).

Every group of people develops a technique to throttle and route
communication and social interaction - it's a fundamental tool for
maximizing productivity of the group as a whole.  Classic corporate
structure is organized like a pyramid, with individuals only able to
regularly communicate with those one layer above or below themselves.
FOSS development and geek culture in general tends to avoid such
restrictions, opting for open lines of communication betwixt us all -
which allows users to report problems directly to those interested in
fixing them.

But we still need to throttle interaction with our most active members
- or else they'd be able to do nothing else.

So we have the RTFM / Google it / make every possible effort to solve
your problem yourself before you bother us with it Rule.

It's _necessary_ for the entire process to work.

> 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.

Well, there's the problem.  Typically I'd say something like "Yes -
all of the above.  Combined wisdom of the community and all that"...
but what we're talking about here is a systemic dumbing of the
community on average.  So I don't know.  When churn is low, new users
can be socialized by the existing group remarkably easily, but when
new users outnumber greybeards, I suspect a more active approach
toward education is necessary.  We can look toward other organizations
for clues...  Churches operate on much the same principles as LUGs...
weekly sermons, low churn = easy socialization, and a church which
rapidly looses or gains a significant membership often finds it's
identity challenged.  No clues there.  :-/  Any other ideas?

--tim