Re: Various debates

From: William Garces (wlgarces@elvis.uccs.edu)
Date: 05/10/96


On Thu, 9 May 1996, Barid Bel Medar wrote:

> If someone asks a newbie-type question, don't flame them publicly.  Do it 
> privately.  I've said this time and again, but flames waste the time of 
> everyone else who has to read through them.  I'm on a disk quota here, 
> and if I get 64 messages, some half of which are flames and 
> counter-flames, I stop receiving mail which is actually useful.

Ditto. I doesn't bother me to see the same question posted a hundred
times (unless of course the messages are all from the same person), but
it does bother me to see messages that serve no other purpose than to
try to make someone else look like a complete idiot in front of other
people.

> 
> If someone doesn't seem to understand C, either explain it to them or 
> *privately* point them to a good book on C programming.  Or, if you still 
> want to go with the separate-list idea, have one for C programming 
> questions and one for CircleMUD.  Actually, you can safely point them to 
> a C programming newsgroup.  Make it clear that this list is for 
> CircleMUD-SPECIFIC questions.  So if it's some code that could be applied 
> in a different circumstance, it shouldn't be here.

What? You mean that people should help the newbies instead of flaming
their heinies off??  What have you been smoking?  If you help the newbies
they might actually learn something.  They might start posting C
questions in C newsgroups.  Then the experienced people will have less
to complain about.  Besides, flaming is much more efficient.  If you
flame someone you can tell them where to post C questions AND make them
fell like crap at the same time. ;-)

> I also have a question:  what's the purpose of this list?  Apparently, 
> not to answer C questions.  I've noticed that CircleMUD 
> "give-me-your-code" questions have also been flamed viciously.  Plus, 
> someone who asks a question because he (or she) is "too lazy" to look up 
> the answer, those questions also receive flames.  So, what *can* we ask 
> about?  Obviously, gaps in C knowledge are not permitted.  Gaps in 
> CircleMUD knowledge due to laziness are not permitted.  Time-saving 
> measures of code distribution are not permitted.
> 
> Of course, any CircleMUD question can be answered by a sufficiently 
> talented C programmer.  Which means that any CircleMUD question is a C 
> question, which means that anyone in off the street should be able to 
> learn as much about CircleMUD as Jeremy Elson (I hope I got your name 
> right, btw, Jeremy!) after looking it over.

You hit the nail on the head...

-Will

> 



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