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On Friday 21 January 2005 00:05, Neil Williams wrote:
Whilst true, the group is diverse. There are new users, yes, but there are also old hands here who appreciate the finer points. Separating the old hands onto an experts list is daft - I would not be writing code now if I hadn't had the chance to lurk and learn from the likes of Theo, Simon, Alex, Pete (H) and Neil S. Go back to the 2001 archives and see some of the daft questions I raised - you'll see I'm not that long out of being a newbie myself!
Although I've been a linux user since about '97 ish (suse 5), I still as some daft questions and probably always will. Whilst there are areas I know quite a lot about, there will always be someone who knows more than I do.
A two stage process is more appropriate IMHO, first get them using Linux, *then* teach them what the different licenses and ethos are.But who are we to say when someone has graduated from one to the other? How will they know themselves unless the topics are discussed and questions answered?I'm generalising, but I suspect the vast majority of contributors and lurkers on this (and other) LUG mailing lists are fairly technically adept.And we have an obligation to encourage everyone to continue learning so that they can teach others.If we want Joe/Jane Bloggs in the street to convert to Linux we can't be scaring him/her off with insistence on correct terminology all the time.This topic has come back again and again over recent months. It started with a Debian masterclass that was deemed unwelcoming to newbies. From time to time, there will be discussions and meetings that are not to everyone's taste. Some will be too basic, some going over people's heads. The important thing is that it *doesn't matter* - people can make their own choices about which threads to join, which threads to ignore. (As long as people change the subject lines!)
A quick note on this. We DONT want people to just change the subject lines, we want them to create a new thread :). They do this be creating a new email, not by clicking reply and changing the subject lines. This list is lower volume than some, so it is possible to read almost every post. However, many people will ignore threads which appear to be about something that they a) aren't interested in, or b) don't know anything about. If nothing else, educating people to create new email threads when appropriate will lower their frustration levels if they then join one of the various high volume lists in the future. My thoughts are that when a user first tries a linux based OS, they don't overly need to know or sometimes even care what it's called. As they progress and become more and more proficient in their use, they're going to start asking more and more indepth questions. These in depth questions are likely to be the ones which will need to be answered by so called 'experts' in that area, when discussing in depth topics you need to know the correct terminology or the 'experts' will not understand what you're on about or they just won't answer because they think if you don't know the correct terminology how are you going to actually understand the answer. This applies to much more than just the GNU / Linux debate. Regards, Jon
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