On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, Shaffer Paul wrote: > Fedora's supporters (frequent repliers to these posts) rightfully > view the lesser mortals here with skepticism and disdain because > they are who they are and nobody is getting paid. Fair enough. no, not fair. and not accurate. if you go back and read some of those threads again, you'll find that newbies are not chastised simply for being newbies. they're chastised for bad behaviour. some examples are (god help me, i'm almost scared to type them in) posting in HTML, and top posting. when newbies do either of these (as they are wont to do, not surprisingly), they are typically (and politely) asked not to do it again. and that's it. they apologize sometimes, they fix their mailers, they change their behaviour, and everyone gets back to work. end of problem. sadly, there is the occasional (i can't think of any other way to describe them) self-absorbed, arrogant bozo who takes umbrage with these rules of etiquette and initiates his own personal crusade to defend either of the above. with disastrous results, of course, leading to the periodic flame war only because *one* *person* thinks he knows better than everyone who's been a regular for years. go back and check in the archives -- tell me i'm wrong. posters here don't get flamed for being newbies or "lesser mortals". they get flamed because they have no sense of courtesy, etiquette or history. rday
