RE: Resizing problem

["Timares, Brian (EDS/HP)" <Brian dot Timares at va dot gov>]

Christopher Faylor
>On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 04:39:58PM +0100, Andy Koppe wrote:
>>On 16 July 2010 15:39, Olwe Melwasul wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 8:50 AM, Jon TURNEY wrote:
[something]

>>> And my feelings would either be bolstered by people like Ken Brown
who
>>> answered these initial questions promptly and accurately with
>>> patience, or trampled rudely and brusquely as is Jon Turney's habit.

>Big ditto.  And, I will once again offer my usual pragmatic observation
>that going personal in a response is not going to have any positive
>effect on your prospects of additional support from the object of your
>diatribe.
>
>We are giving you stuff for free, including mailing list support.  If
>you don't like the type of support you receive then you *can* send
email
>to a mailing list expressing your outrage but that is not likely to
have
>any positive effect whatsoever beyond the temporary flush from
>expressing "righteous" indignation.

Hi,

Here are some constructive suggestions for both "sides".

First, adding rudeness to the mix is unlikely to help.  The upset a user
feels, when applied to someone else, won't result in the solution to
what was the original issue.  Of course, the rudeness felt by a user
when applied by someone more experienced also helps no one.

Second, when someone gets upset, there is typically a reason for it.  It
isn't always anyone's fault.  I can tell there are some people here to
whom English is a second language.  And many to whom precision comes
before niceties.  There is no intent to be rude, even if a native
speaker might reasonably suspect that.  Give the benefit of the doubt.

Third, I see it less here than on, say, anything related to OpenBSD, but
the "It's free, suck it up or go away" and "It's open source, you fix
it" are both terrible answers, essentially saying "FOAD".  If I could
ban anything from the Internet, it would be spelling lose as loose, but
closely behind that would be the dismissive attitude behind the "It's
free" remarks.  It is not likely to have any positive effect whatsoever
beyond the temporary flush from expressing "righteous" indignation.

If someone complains or says "wouldn't it be nice if" or even seeks an
answer to a problem they are showing they care, just as people who offer
up software show they care by offering up the software.  If they don't
care, why are they offering up software?

Realize that criticisms and problems and wants, even if poorly worded,
are really either:
a) Bug reports/Feature requests
b) Someone Just Missed Something, maybe covered in the FAQ

Yes, people should read man pages.  Yes people should check the FAQ.
Yes sometimes something is in the documentation or the mail list.
Sometimes the documentation doesn't cover something, or the mail list
has outdated information.  Or if the answer is there, perhaps it isn't
as clear as it could be (though I find the Cygwin docs do try to deal
with this more than most projects).

If someone has an FAQ complaint, feel free to say "that's covered in the
FAQ, see the signature for the location".  If someone is making what is
essentially a bug report or feature request, tell them what the URL is
to enter it.  Or explain why what they want isn't possible or practical.


Brian
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