[mythtv-users] Please shut up!
Iván Pérez Domínguez
ivanperezdominguez at gmail.com
Mon Jan 29 08:00:27 UTC 2007
Yeechang Lee wrote:
> This message is not going to make me popular. I don't care. It will
> also be my only statement on the subject.
I would consider this message offtopic and, due to that fact, it will be
my only statement on the subject as well.
>
> mythtv-users is way, way, way too busy.
> ...
> This is an
> almost-overwhelming volume for even a speedreader like me.
Believe it or not, I used that data in a speech I gave two weeks ago.
> While many messages contain worthwhile questions on
> previously-unanswered or inadequately-answered topics, and answers to
> said questions, I see far, far, far too many that fall into at least
> one of three camps:
>
> 1) Questions that have been covered over, over, over again on the
> list, on the Wiki, in the FAQ, in Jarod's howto and other popular
> resources, and elsewhere on the Internet. In some cases, questions
> get asked mere days or hours after the question has been previously
> and thoroughly dealt with.
1) Answer topics with pointers to the right previously-answered
post/topic/resource/wiki page/whatever, instead of giving the answer
itself. As fas as I know, this would make search engines to show that
link as one of the first results when searching for a
previously-answered topic.
If you do this, please be as specific as possible. Something like
"read mplayer's man" is not helpful at all.
> 2) Questions that don't contain the information necessary for others
> to help diagnose and solve the problem.
2) New and unexperienced users usually think that including some big
files such as kernel's config, Xorg.0.log, mythtv's log, etc. will make
others not to want to answer them or, maybe worse, to tell them not to
do that ever again. Experienced users tend to include only that
information they haven't discarded yet. I would give some guidelines on
what to submit for each specific subject. For instance:
a) If your question is related to running mythtv with a strange
resolution, include *this* file, *this* other file, and finally *that* one.
...) And so on and so forth.
> 3) Questions that don't have anything to do with MythTV or, more
> generally, using a computer to record and play back televisions at
> all.
Nothing to say about this one. Just don't answer these questions.
> (1) Read a [mailing list] for two weeks before posting to it.
> (2) If you do not understand the reason for rule (1), make it a
> month.
I definitely disagree with these rules. Sometimes people have been
searching for a long, long time and they don't want to wait anymore.
Now I see your not a developer. If that were the case, you would have
written something like: while (!(understand(1));
> To list members: gossamer-threads.com, wiki.mythtv.org,
> wilsonet.com/mythtv/, www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythInstall, not
> to mention the all-purpose google.com, can answer pretty much every
> MythTV-related question you can think of and most you can't.
Adding some other hints for people to find answers to mythtv-related
topics using google (and other search engines) could be definitely
handy. I use to add some link: or site: tags to my searches.
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