Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Frequently asked questions in these groups deserve a monthly posting
Message-ID: <1740@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 3 Jun 89 22:15:29 GMT
References: <21089@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <810059@hpsemc.HP.COM>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 27

>All you are going to do with this course of action is limit the excellent
>communication that goes on in this group.  I am definitely against it.

Oh, rubbish.  "This course of action" is to have a monthly posting,
containing the answer to said frequently-asked questions, in the hopes
that people will be able to get the answer *without* asking the question
and *without* provoking all the *low*-quality communication that these
questions often provoke (i.e., answers from people who don't know the
answer any better than the person who's asking the question, but who,
unlike the asker, don't know that they don't know the answer).

And he didn't suggest that, as you seem to imply, you should
"discouraging people from asking questions by flaming them for posting
questions that have been posted before".  As for your question "How are
they going to know?", the answer is "they read the introductory posting,
and get their questions answered perhaps before they even ask it".

There's no "self important #*&@(*$ weeding out information that I might
need because he has seen it before" involved, as you imply; there's a
periodic posting that *contains* this very information that you assert
is being "weeded out" by some supposed "self important #*&@(*$".

If said periodic posting reduces the number of *wrong* answers posted to
these common questions - and, perhaps, even educates those who would
post those wrong answers as to what the right answer is - it will, with
any luck, *increase* the quality of the communication that goes on in
this group, not "limit" it.