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Subject: Re: apology

Re: apology

From: Guest3731 <notconfusedaboutthattoday_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:57:49 -0500

Paul Louden wrote:
> As I said, this is part of my problem. From my perspective, it's lying
> if you join a list, claiming to agree to its guidelines, and then
> disregard them. I'm unable to understand why people think it's
> acceptable behaviour to lie about their agreement, or to complain about
> such guidelines when they're notified that they overlooked their
> existence. My own response would simply be "Oh, I wasn't aware that sort
> of behaviour was required here. I'll do that from now on."
>
>
[snip]

It seems your expectations are so different from most peoples' that you
will not be able to be happy as a support person. Most people who ask
questions on lists like these are semi-technical, or non-technical
people, who expect, and typically get, a fair degree of hand-holding
(i.e. it's usually o.k. to ask dumb questions, and only asking the same
dumb question more than once will generally call for an application of
the Clue-bat - same goes for mailing-list etiquette). Rockbox is in an
unusual space - it's a pretty sophisticated product, that really
requires some technical know-how to fully appreciate. But it's also
clearly something that will appeal to non-technical users - it's an
upgrade of a product that everybody's got. So you kind of have to
choose - do you want wider appeal? If so, you're going to get
top-posters and non-trimmers, and yes, sorry, they're not going to get
it when you make an issue over mailing-list etiquette. An appreciation
of mailing-list etiquette is geeks-only territory. Most people don't,
and won't, read Manuals. You can be upset about this, and stop making
the product, but you can't change people.

As for your understanding of the nature of the "agreement" that an
enduser makes, implicitly, by posting to a technical mailing list -
wow. No, sorry, your attitude is extraordinarily, drastically different
than the attitudes of most technically-savvy, seasoned Usenet/mailing
list types, not to mention your run-of-the-mill non-technical
FAQ-asker. Nobody sees posting to a mailing list as an acknowledgment
of a moral contract not to top-post, etc.. Everyone sees list
guidelines as precisely that, guidelines, suggestions - if, that is,
they've even read them. Sorry, this is just reality. Not one person
in 1,000 thinks this has anything to do with lying. So, yes, you are
the odd man out here. There's nothing that can be done by anyone in
this situation except you - other people are never going to move in your
direction. And unfortunately it's difficult to explain why this is so -
it's just sort of a background understanding that one develops.

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Received on 2009-06-21

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