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Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 13:22:05 -0600
From: Rob Bell <RobDBell AT hotmail DOT com>
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Hughes, Bill wrote:

> Christopher Faylor wrote:
> 
>>On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 11:02:54AM +0100, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>
>>>The bottom line is, you can complain, but the better solution is to
>>>make your environment more foolproof against changes in one part of
>>>it. In case of MSDEV tools I suggest to put the MSDEV tool path in
>>>front of the Cygwin paths.  It's what I'd do anyway.
>>
>>Hmm.  I have to wonder how often sound, practical advice like the
>>above is taken as "negative".
>>
>>Given that I've seen people claim to have been "flamed" here
>>for including
>>email addresses in the body of their messages, I think that
>>some people
>>set the bar a little low when interpreting email in a
>>negative context.
> 
> 
> Agreed, I bet anyone who thinks that is flaming has never been anywhere near
> Usenet :-).
> 
> FWIW (not much I know) if I've been an idiot I expect someone will tell me
> as much, it's handy to be told how and why sometimes as I might not realise
> for myself.
> My impression is that it is people who only read the list somewhat
> infrequently who think that 'certain people' are just mean (tm), anyone who
> reads this a lot will understand the slow torture of the regularly dripping
> tap. It's hard when from one persons point of view it's the same stupid
> question or boneheaded suggestion AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN until you want
> to get a hammer and, and... 
> and from the other persona POV "I only asked a question". ARRRGGH.
> I'm glad it's not me on this ML, but I've been there, as you can tell.
> 
> Bill

It's not flaming as much as the exceptionally derisive attitude that a 
few members have when responding to questions.  Those users could 
provide valuable information or guidance in a lot more friendly manner 
than bluntly saying "fix it yourself and, while you're at it, why don't 
you start maintaining it too?".  This is the Cygwin mailing list, which 
is here to support Cygwin, an open source project.  Open source projects 
are typically community-minded projects with many members asking 
questions, providing feedback and mutual support on issues, and working 
together to improve the project.  Projects don't prosper by have a few 
'experienced' folks being rude and ticked off because other people are 
asking questions.  If those 'experienced' users are that fed up with 
participating in the project then perhaps they should just take a deep 
breath and avoid sending a response to those questions at all. 
Sometimes silence is better.  That way other members can chime in with 
useful information.  Bear in mind that I'm only talking about a couple 
of folks...  In general there are lots of helpful folks here.

If the question is an 'irritating' FAQ then just nicely point the user 
in the right direction.

Rob

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