FreeBSD-newbies group is a compromise community.

[Ion-Mihai Tetcu]

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:41:03 -0800
Johnson David <DavidJohnson at Siemens.com> wrote:

> On Monday 22 March 2004 11:06 am, Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P. wrote:
> 
> > Finally, is this something we might agree on?
> > Technical questions aren't permitted, but
> > "your experiences" are....
> >
> > Newbie A:  "I'm having trouble with foomatic..."
> >
> > Newbie B:  "I had trouble with foomatic, but by
> > changing the $bar variable in my $file, I was
> > able to overcome this difficulty."
> 
> The problem is that setting the $bar variable in $file might be exact 
> WRONG answer for the user in question. Newbies by their nature don't 
> understand the fundamental concepts behind the answer, and will blindly 
> perform the steps without question.
> 
> For some questions, the wrong answer can be very harmful. The wrong 
> instructions for setting up XFree86 can physically destroy some older 
> monitors. Less obvious harm can result by opening up security holes in 
> the system.
> 
> As much as we want to be helpful to other people, newbies should never 
> answer other newbie's technical questions. All technical answers should 
> be coming from experts, and on a list where other experts can instantly 
> jump in a correct any wrong answers.

The hard thing being to define who is / what is a newbie and who / what
is  not ;-)
Not that I don't agree with what you say above.


-- 
IOnut
Unregistered ;) FreeBSD user