Re: c.l.j.programmer vs. c.l.j.help (was: Re: What does this mean??)

Roedy Green <my_email_is_posted_on_my_website@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on
Thu, 03 Nov 2005 02:35:33 GMT in comp.lang.java.programmer:

>On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:07:39 -0500, Dave Glasser <dglasser@xxxxxxxxx>
>wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>>But what constitutes an "easy question" is subjective. Moreover, why
>>should newsgroups be divided between "easy" and "not easy" questions?
>
>You have told us it does not matter to you. You read everything
>anyway. Your concern is hazing newbies is going to drive them away.

It's not even that, exactly. It's just that jerks annoy me. And
someone who pounces on a hapless poster and berates him, particularly
over something as stupid as posting in what they consider the "wrong"
newsgroup, is a jerk. I wish jerks would go away, but they never seem
to. Individually they may come and go, but it seems there's always one
or two in every programming newsgroup.

I told you before how I'm able to ignore the gibberish questions
without being bothered by them, but it's not the same with the
jerk-posts. Sure, it only takes a few seconds of my time to read them,
and I almost always ignore them (i.e. not respond to them), but still,
they just grate on me, and raise my aggravation level a point or two.
They harsh my mellow, so to speak.

>How to maintain the distinction, without being rude or intimidating?
>One way to do that is to post the answer in the "proper" group with a
>short note in the "wrong" group explaining where the answer is and why
>you put it there. That may be more work than browbeating the newbie.
>It is more a carrot than a stick.

If that's what you want to do, God bless you, knock yourself out. It
doesn't bother me when someone politely tries to steer a newbie to
what they think is the appropriate group, although I think it's a
futile waste of time. And considering how long you've been around, I'm
amazed that hasn't dawned on you yet.

Both c.l.j.help and c.l.j.programmer get a lot of traffic, and the
posts in both groups cover the whole spectrum of beginner to advanced
topics. There's really very little difference between the contents of
the two groups. For years people have used various tactics to try and
change this, to herd the cats in the appropriate directions, and still
it stays the same. That's the result of poor product design--two
groups with essentially the same topic and vague, non-specific
names--it's not the fault of the users.


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