[GRLUG] (no subject)

[Bill_Raterink at spartanstores.com]

Members of GRLUG...

I was out of the office yesterday afternoon, so when I arrived this 
morning, I had 98 emails to catch up on.  92 were from GRLUG.
Some were about cat5 cables & a few were about spam, but the vast majority 
were concerning a dialog about a hostile attitude.

While I'm neither qualified to address the Vista issue NOR the purpose of 
this Linux Users Group, I do have a few thoughts I'd like to offer.
Please be advised...these observations are in not in support of either 
camp, but rather intended to offer some helpful insight that may have been 
missed in the conversation. After having read the entire thread in 
sequence, I've come to a few conclusions regarding GRLUG & Linux.

A little background.... I am extremely new to linux.  I've managed to 
install a version from a LiveCD and then promptly render it unusable. I'm 
about 2 weeks into the entire process.  I use WindowsXP for nearly all my 
computing & am by no means, a guru in THAT either.  I am currently 
"registered" at about 5-6 forums/user groups/support sites/ etc. and this 
is only within the last year or so, so this on-line collaboration is also 
quite new to me. 

Now...
I posted a question on a linux forum & after a week of not even a 
response, I "asked if I could ask" the question on another (language) 
forum.
This showed both the courtesy the site deserved, and the preparedness on 
my part to abide by the forums reply.  This was not done here on the GRLUG 
site. 

I was "politely" told that I should go ahead & ask in the chat room, but 
not make it a formal post because while this was not a Linux forum, there 
was a lot of linux knowledge here & they'd be happy to offer what they 
could.  They too, pointed me to several sites that could offer additional 
help.  They also warned me to "be prepared for some good natured tongue 
lashings".  This set the stage completely. All expectations were up front 
& on the table. 

What this illustrated to me was a community that is willing to go the 
extra steps to help a (by this time) very distressed fellow student of the 
*nix world.  Based on the dialog, I feel I'm the very person the GRLUG is 
trying to attract.  I'm attempting to move to the Linux world, and require 
some "mentoring in the process".  However, I'm now left wondering if this 
group can... 1)really offer the help I'm going to need, and  2) if it will 
be worth the price in having to deal with the personality issues. 

I think the professor made some profound misjudgements, but the groups 
"collective" image is at stake with EVERY reply, & I didn't see anywhere, 
where that was even taken into consideration.  Sure, you think Linux is 
better than Windows, and even saying so is not harmful in itself, but if 
the humor is not explicitly stated, then you run the risk of offending 
folks.  The fallout is just not worth the risk, in my opinion.

In the question I referenced earlier, I was "chastised severely" for 
running Linux on an "such antique box".   The idea that it was all in fun, 
was never a question....maybe that's just me, but maybe it's also that the 
folks there understand that the written word holds no tone of voice, hence 
the proliferation of emoticons.  The are always 2,3,4 ways to say the same 
thing, and even if someone like the professor fires the first 
flamethrower, we owe it to the rest of the community to give him/her the 
benefit of the doubt.  When we don't "turn the other cheek" we start the 
downward spiral that only can end in hurt feelings.  The "Where's the 
payback in it" reply was way off  base.  THAT is not why we help each 
other.

Most people would never knowingly adopt a belligerent attitude towards the 
very people they're asking for help.  We must consider this persons 
frustration level, before adding to it by sending a retaliatory response. 
A simple "We're sorry, but that doesn't belong in this forum" even if it 
has to be repeated by 2-3 folks, is a better, more professional way of 
handling this type of issue.  To he "outside world" (ie. me) this dialog 
appeared to be a bunch of gamers bullying the kid in the horned rimmed 
glasses. 

...& professor, you blew it.  These folks here WANT to help you, & they 
offered you what they could, so.... 
if you ever do this again, "I breaka you face".  ;-)

Just my thoughts... thanks for listening.  I hope this "opinion" neither 
offends nor empowers one side or the other, but rather offers that all 
important "disinterested 3rd party observation". 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://shinobu.grlug.org/pipermail/grlug/attachments/20080501/0105ac01/attachment-0001.htm