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From: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Structuring this newsgroup
Message-ID: <14651@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Date: 11 Sep 89 13:31:43 GMT
References: <4615@eos.UUCP> <14866@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <247@seti.inria.fr> <1463@hcx1.UUCP> <1559@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl> <840@madnix.UUCP>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
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In article <840@madnix.UUCP> schaut@madnix.UUCP (Rick Schaut) writes:
>And if you were a beginner and had a question, would you ask other
>beginners or the 'wizards'?  It's funny, but the Borland programming
>forum on Compu$erve gets as much, if not more, traffic from beginners
>as this group gets, and their questions are treated as respectfully
>and as seriously as the difficult stuff.  

Usenet is not CompuServe.  CIS supplies its own machines and you pay,
voluntarily, for the privilege of darting in and accessing just what you
want -- with no burden on others as a result.  Usenet is a cooperative
net where news articles flood everywhere, and it has different rules.

Specifically if you are a beginner it is your responsibility to read the
news.announce.newusers articles before posting anything.  If you do this
you get to see what comp.unix.wizards is for, and how it differs from
the other newsgroups.  Many problems begin when beginners, or even
longtime lurkers who have never read the n.a.n stuff, confuse this net
with their neighborhood BBS or pay time share service.

>                                          I have yet to see the letters
>'RTFM' posted in a message there.  Can't you people grow up and remember
>that you were once beginners at C as well?

Individual CIS Forums are subject to the stylistic and etiquette
preferences of their Administrators and, in the case of product support
Forums like Borland, their sponsoring companies.  Borland and CIS make
money off every beginner who comes in and asks the same questions over
and over, and off most well meaning experts who kindly answer.  It is
manifestly not in their financial interest to have newbies offline R'ing
TFM instead of online reading and posting to the Forum.

Here it is different - we are all sharing the cost of passing this stuff
around, and the more time newbies spend "offline" the better.

-- 
Annex Canada now!  We need the room,	\)	Tom Neff
    and who's going to stop us.		(\	tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET