[conspire] Ye olde clue deficiency

[Rick Moen]

Dunno why so many people think anyone with a Web page has volunteered to
do free-of-charge private tutoring -- but I do notice that a large
majority of them (still) use Microsoft mail software.  Some things never
change.

----- Forwarded message from [miscreant identity snipped] -----

From: [miscreant identity snipped]
To: rick at linuxmafia.com
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:01:15 -0700
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.5510
Subject: I dig the definitions page

Rick,
 
     I am just a newbie at all this networking stuff.  I am working on CCNP
and MCSE; already have CCNA, but unlike those coffee service engineers you
spoke of, I have about 10 years of system administration experience and
usually I end up teaching a classroom full of guys that have ~20 years of
experience.  Go figure.  I enjoyed your definitions page and am thus simply
writing to warn you that Linux and UNIX is next on my list of things at
which to become an expert in and I may soon have some questions for an
alleged master such as yourself.  I currently use an AS400 to heat my home
in the winter as it's less expensive and more efficient than any other
conventional heating method, but some day, I'll want to be able to use the
thing for what it was intended.
 
[name]
 

----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:28:44 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: [miscreant identity snipped]
Subject: Re: I dig the definitions page

Quoting [miscreant identity snipped]:

> I enjoyed your definitions page and am thus simply writing to warn you
> that Linux and UNIX is next on my list of things at which to become an
> expert in and I may soon have some questions for an alleged master
> such as yourself.  

Hi, [name]!  I hope you have fun with Linux/Unix.  Thanks for the mail!

You questions are better posted to one or more local Linux user group
mailing list, and or to somewhere appropriate in the comp.os.linux.*
or comp.os.unix.* hierarchies on Usenet.  You'll find that, by contrast,
asking technically knowledgeable strangers in e-mail for what amounts to
private tutoring will at first get you signs of polite but annoyed
tolerance (and few or no answers), but that this polite sufferance will
quickly turn into more-annoyed avoidance or outright killfiling.

Why?  Because experienced users know that conducting technical
conversations in _public_ on public forums (preferably that are
searchably archived) is a much, much, much more efficient means of
maintaining the body of public understanding and of technical culture.
By contrast, helping one stranger in private helps nobody else, does
nothing to maintain the technical community, and tends, overall, to be
indistinguishable from consulting work, except that you aren't getting
paid.

It's therefore cosidered a significant faux pas to request such help,
especially without accompanying them by an offer to pay expert
consulting rates -- a bad practice gladly tolerated briefly (but never
indulged) from Internet newcomers, but even then it's expected that _even_
college freshmen new to the Internet will quickly figure out that it's a
rather rude and impertinent thing to try, and why.

> I currently use an AS400 [...]

You must have been very bad.  ;->

(You might enjoy my cumulative .siganture files collection, which I
maintain in http://linuxmafia.com/pub/humour/sig-rickmoen .)


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