On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:10:53 -0500, "Herbert Graf" said:

> There is no protocol, there is no drive on our side. You haven't opened
> anything new, therefore you can consider the old gospel still relevant,
> which Bob stated quite clearly:

I think that was Adam. 

My own feelings are not simple. 

This is the MIT Piclist. MIT is the premier technology school. It would
be nice if the Piclist could live up to that standard.

Respecting other people's feelings is important. Yesterday I offended
Gus unintentionally.

Within a culture, having a defined set of customs and protocols makes
for polite discourse even if what's being said is slightly unwelcome.

There's a reason why the term "RTFM" came into existence. There's got to
be a way to tell someone to look something up for themselves without
causing offense or starting a flame war.

Does the Piclist need some guidelines how to ask questions, how to tell
someone to "RTFM", and how the recipient and the rest of the users
should respond to it?

In other words, if someone responds "RTFM"(or the new Piclist
equivalent), the recipient should not take offense, and other readers
not respond to the RTFM, only to the OP's question if they do choose to
help directly?

In my opinion, something should be done to allow participation and at
the same time press us to continually improve the quality of the
technical discussions on the Piclist.

This is a complicated mess we are in and I think a little thinking needs
to be applied. The Piclist has lots of helpful and smart people. Let's
use them all and grow our way out of this.

Best regards,

Bob



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