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Old 19th October 2008
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Turophile View Post
Seriously, should toss this around a bit more, work out what the community agrees and push to get a man page included "man newbie" would be fantastic.
Although your exuberance is commendable, the cultures of the various *BSD projects are different. Each deals with newbies in different ways. In general, the various projects focus at development issues as they should. Providing help to newbies may be important, but its prioritization is eclipsed by more pressing development matters. If newbies can fill any void which may be present, great. If they can't, there are other alternatives in operating systems. The *BSD projects are simply not big enough to have the infrastructure in place to deal with such collateral issues.

However, if there is a role that independent forum sites like this one can fill, helping newbies could be a cornerstone to our existence. Whether we actually fill that role is a different question.

Nevertheless, a number of us try.
Quote:
People NEED to it.
There are a number of variations on this theme which have been available for a much longer time. One of the more notable examples is the following:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Yes, it would be good if people had better & more mature troubleshooting skills, but the reality is otherwise. As a wise member of this site has told me, "You can lead someone to the water, but you cannot make them think..." We are a resource. If people take advantage of what we collectively can offer, great, but we cannot force anything on anyone.
Quote:
Of course then we'd need the "What makes a perfect helper?" guide too
Already done.

http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=1455
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