My History:
I left the redhat community because I didn't like the support anymore. That was fine by me, I found a community I liked better (gentoo for the record) and they were polite and helpful. In the past few months this has gotten a little bit worse, but I still believe its better than the redhat/fedora situation. To me this is fine, linux is about choice, and I made a choice.
Since then I found a job (its only a student worker position as I'm a college student) where I am essential in charge of a number of redhat boxes. I am working on moving people over to fedora or enterprise as they choose. Thus I joined some of the lists. I think this community hopping has given me some perspective that I would like to throw out just as food for thought.
My thoughts:
First of all I would ask that if some one posts inappropriately, please answer their question. Then, at the bottom, say by the way the community would appreciate it if you would obey some etiquette rules, and provide a link to where they are posted. If a user has received help, then they feel grateful and are more likely to show the respect of obeying therequested rules. There is nothing more annoying then getting a bunch of messages about what you did wrong and yet not get an answer to your question, epically when you are frustrated. The negative comments only hurt the community.
Second of all, would it be appropriate to see if official forums could be devised to replace the mailing lists? New users should already be familiar with a forum system, so I don't see that it would be much harder for them. Yet forums would seem to fix many of these problems. If people want to complain about bandwidth, then they can choose not to view a thread. If the message is screened properly, html shouldn't hurt it (or only allow bbcode etc). Signing up for an account is a little bit of a hassle, but its really no worse then signing up for a mailing list. With a proper search feature, I think they are just as useful.
I know I'm a semi-outsider, so I should be careful criticizing; I want this community to be the best that it can. Since these discussions never seem to end, maybe its time to take a step to change the way we do things.
Thanks, Bill Student Worker - Linux Chemistry Department The Ohio State University
