Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!odin
From: odin@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Jon Granrose)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Getting requests for things you asked for is *expected*
Summary: explaination
Message-ID: <6688@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Date: 15 Mar 89 08:00:05 GMT
References: <6654@saturn.ucsc.edu> <6763@hoptoad.uucp>
Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: odin@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Jon Granrose)
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
Lines: 67

In article <6763@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.UUCP (John Gilmore) writes:
|A few people complained that when they ask for something, they get a
|flood of requests from others asking for the same thing.  They seem
|to think that this is a problem.  It *is* a small burden on the
|individual, but please look at it in the larger (network wide) perspective.

[reasons deleted]

|If you ask the net for something, and by the grace of the contributors
|and the archive maintainers and the people running the email/news
|links and the phone bills paid for by everyone else, you receive it --
|*be a little generous*.  In return for receiving what you asked for,
|handle the few requests that you get for it -- either by sending it to
|them, if it's small; or by sending them the information on where to get
|it themselves.  Note that by "few" I mean maybe a dozen or two.  After
|all, your original query was read and handled by hundreds or thousands
|of people, some of whom ended up able to help you and did so.  The
|least you can do is to help a couple of dozen.  In this way you become one
|of the people who makes the net work -- not just a recipient of others' work.
|
|It's pretty easy to automate this if it starts to become a burden.
|Save a copy of your response to one of the people who asks you, in a file.
|Then for every new request, just email them the file containing the response.
|If your message bounces, you could try rerouting if you're feeling particularly
|generous, else just give up reaching that person -- there's no need to bend
|over backwards, just be courteous and helpful, like the people who sent
|you the thing in the first place.
|--
|John Gilmore    {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,amdahl}!hoptoad!gnu    gnu@toad.com
|"Use the Source, Luke...."
|Copyright 1989 John Gilmore; you may redistribute only if your recipients may.

	I just wanted to defend myself by stating that I did not
intend to sound like I felt it was totally uncalled for for these
people to request the information from me.  On several occasions I
have had numerous (30-50) requests for various files I had relating
to anonymous FTP sites (.GIF, Amiga, and general) and this was even
after I had posted the file on the net.  I admit it got to be somewhat
of a burden to log on a wade through all my mail but it wasn't that
bad.
	What happened in this situation was I requested information
and was sent instructions on how to request this information.  While
I was in the process of doing so (it took several attempts to get the
path right as I don't ahve access to a smart UUCP mailer) I received
numerous requests for the list I was requesting.  Normally, this would
not be a problem and I would just mail it to them.  However, I still
had not figured out the path when I was getting these requests.  Also,
for each of the 15 (in this case) requests they were all of the form
Subject: send index with nothing else.  Needless to say, this did not
make me feel very generous and as a result I replied asking them to
reread the posting (since they had sent the request to me and not to
comp-archives) and try again.  After I received the info I mailed it
to several people who mailed me after I got it.
	Now I don't know about you, but I whenever I request information
from someone, I am polite about it and send thanks when I get it.  But
when it is as impersonal as "send index" I don't feel very generous.

I'm sorry this is so long.  I would have rather put it in mail but
I could not figure out the correct path to do so.

Jon
 _____________________________________________________________________________
|Jon Granrose         |  ARPA: odin@ucscb.UCSC.EDU |CIS: 74036,3241|  // Only |
|Cowell College, UCSC |  UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!odin         |\X/ Amiga!|
|Santa Cruz, CA 95064 |Bitnet: odin%ucscb.ucsc.edu@cunyvm.bitnet    ~~~~~~~~~~|
|"A mind is a terrible thing" "Remember, no matter where you go there you are"|
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