You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to community@apache.org by Henning Schmiedehausen <hp...@intermeta.de> on 2005/08/08 11:03:27 UTC
Re: Netiquette: Is there an issue, and can we make the ASF more
welcoming?
On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 17:36 +1000, David Crossley wrote:
> Jean T. Anderson wrote:
> > I'll post here what I've told Noel and others elsewhere.
> >
> > At ApacheCon Eu two men who attended the Derby BOF said they don't like
> > to post to user lists because of the flame wars. One went further to say
> > that he doesn't always have the time to thoroughly research the
> > documentation and mail lists for a given topic. Both said they prefer to
> > seek out knowledgeable developers and ask their questions off-line.
> >
> > My experience at Apache has been good, so I was surprised to hear two
> > users say they were reluctant to post to mail lists. They didn't say
> > which list(s) had flamed them.
>
> I too find this to be unusual behaviour at Apache.
> At projects that i work with, people are respectful.
One should always be aware that the level of offense depends on many
things. For example, there are a lot of people that tell me, when they
met me in RL, that my mails sometimes sound very harsh because they
often contain only a single sentence or so, which people from some
culture groups consider offensive or rude because there is "leading in
paragraph" or "leading out paragraph". However, when you deal with loads
of mails every day, this simply costs time that most of us don't have.
Other people consider it rude when they send you a personal question
about a project and just get an answer that says "please ask this
question on <xxx>-user@apache.org" because they feel that when they ask
a direct question to a developer, they also deserve a direct answer. But
this is the same thing as above. Most apache people can't (and I'm
pretty sure that people from the really busy projects like httpd, Tomcat
or Struts can even less) answer every direct question without pointing
to the mailing lists.
And then there are two special types of people: Those that barge in with
"Could you please give me a list of points why your project is
better/worse than <another project>? Please summarize in two paragraphs;
I need this till end of week" and those that ask questions that are
obviously answered in the documentation and FAQs over and over again.
Where it is obvious, that they don't bother reading the docs but
consider it the duty of the developers to answer their questions.
The first group feels offended when you tell them that you will not do
their "product selection paper / term paper / report to the boss" for
them and the second group feels offended when you point them at the docs
and say that they should read the docs first and then come back and ask
questions that are not answered there.
So in the end: Yes. I'm pretty aware that there are people who sometimes
feel offended by answers done by developers and I must admit that I
probably did my fair share here. Sometimes people will feel offended no
matter what you write. However, IMHO getting an answer which is "please
see the manual at <URL>" is still better than just getting no answer at
all.
Best regards
Henning
--
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen INTERMETA GmbH
hps@intermeta.de +49 9131 50 654 0 http://www.intermeta.de/
RedHat Certified Engineer -- Jakarta Turbine Development
Linux, Java, perl, Solaris -- Consulting, Training, Engineering
4 - 8 - 15 - 16 - 23 - 42
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
Re: Netiquette: Is there an issue, and can we make the ASF more welcoming?
Posted by "J.Pietschmann" <pi...@apache.org>.
Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
> Agreed - brevity is because we're busy and we want to save the time of
> our busy colleagues,
[snip]
I wondered whether QuickText
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=thunderbird&id=640
would help here. I never came around providing enough canned answers
to be useful though :-( Accumulating canonical non-rude answers to
FAQs could be a yet another community project, if getting them into
TB from the web would be sufficiently easy.
Straying a bit from the thread topic: my personal experiments to
filter FAQish candidates out of the email stream for semi-automated
answers failed so far, partly due to the highly non-standard english
used by the posters which escaped even sophisticated statistical
classifiers.
There are also those slightly naive people who just don't recognize the
complexity of the technologies they attempt to deal with: "I downloaded
FOP and run the examples. Now I have a 25GB database and have to
produce some 100+ complex reports, how do I do it? Please help!"
See also
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogBugzII.html
way down under the "snippets" subheading. Could be a bugzilla/jira
feature request unless the idea has already been patented elsewhere.
J.Pietschmann
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
Re: Netiquette: Is there an issue, and can we make the ASF more welcoming?
Posted by "Jean T. Anderson" <jt...@apache.org>.
Antonio Gallardo wrote:
> Jean T. Anderson wrote:
>
>> ... Lately I've been adding a sincere "If that page/post doesn't help,
>> please be sure to post back to this list!"
>
>
> This a good idea. But I think you can add more "cosmetic". As is
> currently it may be to strong for some people. ;-)
>
> Maybe something like:
>
> "If this page/post doesn't help, feel free to ask for more help".
>
> (I am not a native english speaker too. Perhaps someone else can improve
> the above sentence. ;-)
I think what you produced was excellent.
thanks!
-jean
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
Re: Netiquette: Is there an issue, and can we make the ASF more welcoming?
Posted by Antonio Gallardo <an...@apache.org>.
Jean T. Anderson wrote:
> ... Lately I've been adding a sincere "If that page/post doesn't help,
> please be sure to post back to this list!"
This a good idea. But I think you can add more "cosmetic". As is
currently it may be to strong for some people. ;-)
Maybe something like:
"If this page/post doesn't help, feel free to ask for more help".
(I am not a native english speaker too. Perhaps someone else can improve
the above sentence. ;-)
Best Regards,
Antonio Gallardo.
>
> Documenting that brevity should not be taken as harshness is a great
> idea and I'll go update http://db.apache.org/derby/derby_mail.html --
> but that also assumes the reader has found the page with that wording.
>
> -jean
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
Re: Netiquette: Is there an issue, and can we make the ASF more welcoming?
Posted by "Jean T. Anderson" <jt...@apache.org>.
Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
> Le 8 août 05, à 14:50, David Crossley a écrit :
>
>> ...However, Henning's analysis is spot on. The necessary
>> brevity could appear as harsh to some newcomers. Perhaps
>> a page of tips about such issues might help such people
>> feel more comfortable, and so we are all more productive...
>
>
> Agreed - brevity is because we're busy and we want to save the time of
> our busy colleagues, so it's worth telling newcomers that it's not
> harshness.
>
> -Bertrand
I'm also known for being too brief/concise. As Bertrand stated, my goal
is efficiency given so much email to wade through; however, I also
realize it can lead to misunderstandings. Lately I've been adding a
sincere "If that page/post doesn't help, please be sure to post back to
this list!"
Documenting that brevity should not be taken as harshness is a great
idea and I'll go update http://db.apache.org/derby/derby_mail.html --
but that also assumes the reader has found the page with that wording.
-jean
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
Re: Netiquette: Is there an issue, and can we make the ASF more welcoming?
Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.
Le 8 août 05, à 14:50, David Crossley a écrit :
> ...However, Henning's analysis is spot on. The necessary
> brevity could appear as harsh to some newcomers. Perhaps
> a page of tips about such issues might help such people
> feel more comfortable, and so we are all more productive...
Agreed - brevity is because we're busy and we want to save the time of
our busy colleagues, so it's worth telling newcomers that it's not
harshness.
-Bertrand
Re: Netiquette: Is there an issue, and can we make the ASF more welcoming?
Posted by David Crossley <cr...@apache.org>.
Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
> Henning Schmiedehausen a ?crit :
>
> >...For example, there are a lot of people that tell me, when they
> >met me in RL, that my mails sometimes sound very harsh because they
> >often contain only a single sentence or so..
>
> I don't think one-liners are a problem generally at the ASF.
>
> -Bertrand, wondering if this proves the point ;-)
However, Henning's analysis is spot on. The necessary
brevity could appear as harsh to some newcomers. Perhaps
a page of tips about such issues might help such people
feel more comfortable, and so we are all more productive.
-David
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
Re: Netiquette: Is there an issue, and can we make the ASF more welcoming?
Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.
Le 8 août 05, à 11:03, Henning Schmiedehausen a écrit :
> ...For example, there are a lot of people that tell me, when they
> met me in RL, that my mails sometimes sound very harsh because they
> often contain only a single sentence or so..
I don't think one-liners are a problem generally at the ASF.
-Bertrand, wondering if this proves the point ;-)