Blunt Tools (was: cgf does not want private email about cygwin)

[Ken Collins]

> I really really do not view the act of telling other people how to help
> themselves as "shaming" them.  I actually find that attitude both naive
> and frightening.  Maybe that is just my conservative political leanings
> showing through.

I think it's all a matter of tone. There are a lot of different ways to
tell someone something. 

> I'm wondering why you are involved in this discussion, then?  What about
> it makes you think that it will not degenerate into some kind of rude
> interchange?

I'm trying to keep the tone elevated. As such, I'll cut it short, since
I've already made my point.

> don't see how setting up a newbie mailing list would help.  Are you
> expecting new people to step forward to answer questions in exhaustive
> detail?

I'm relatively new, and I would step forward if I didn't think my response
would be preempted by a URL. It takes some time to work up a decent
response. People who have recently solved a problem are usually excited
about it and want to share their knowledge, even if the problem is trivial.

> I would expect that if I set up a cygwin-newbies mailing list we'd just
> see a lot of cross posting between the two lists and it would actually
> end up just adding to the confusion.

Maybe so. The people who are burned out could ignore the cross-postings.

> Actually, the "here's what you should do" attitude is also something
> about this list that bothers me.  You very very rarely see that turned
> around to either "What can *I* do?" or even "Here's what I can do".
> That's too bad.

I was more hinting that people shouldn't do things. 

> I don't remember what the tone of the mailing list was like in 1997.
> All I know is that if I am using and enjoying something that I've gotten
> for free, I like to see if I can somehow return the favor in a sort of
> "pay it forward" type of scenario.  I know that all of the actual
> contributors here are probably similarly motivated.  And, nearly all
> of them are probably feeling the strain of the success that cygwin
> has been "suffering".

I've contributed some suggestions. I'm not expecting a tag in the source
for it. It's just something for consideration.

Ken Collins

--
Want to unsubscribe from this list?
Check out: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple