[TAG] TAG list etc

[Benjamin A. Okopnik]

On Sun, Jan 22, 2006 at 06:59:20PM -0800, Mike Orr wrote:
> 
> Regarding the Makefile question, I did think both Thomas and Ben were
> a little harsh initially.  But when the querent turned nasty and
> essentially said, "Fuck you Unix heads and all your children," I
> thought, maybe Thomas and Ben
> are better at recognizing those kind of people than I am.

It's a 'shit or get off the pot' point I've come to recognize quite well
on lists: if somebody comes blundering in, *really* knowing nothing of
protocol, then - well, if their Mommy didn't teach them that communities
_have_ protocol (and it seems that many Mommies skip that vital step
these days), then a) they need to learn that this is true, b) they need
to learn that there's a cost to violating it (although I spank'em *very*
lightly, despite your take on it.) If they really are well-intentioned
and want to learn, they'll take it as earned, apologize, *learn better*,
and keep on going - perhaps becoming contributing members of the
community, which isn't possible without learning that protocol in the
first place.

If they choose to reject that entire model - i.e., "I don't give a shit
about your protocols, just give me what I want!" - then they don't get
the benefit of participating in the community. The point is that _either
way_ there's a cost: either you make an effort to learn what the
protocols are *before* you join (and net.communities are far kinder than
any other community in history because they generally make the rules
explicit and universally-available: consider for a moment how it would
be if you had to suss all this out from context...), or you get to put
up with a little gruffness because you failed to do so. This isn't a
question of imposing a cost "because you had to pay it"; it's a
well-thought-out policy of keeping piles of clumsy puppies - no matter
how well-meaning - from piddling on your shoes.

> As far as opening the list archives, that brings up issues of querent
> privacy, publishability, copyright, etc, for material we wouldn't
> publish.  The archives don't have *better* answers than the zine coz
> we put the best stuff in the zine.  And if people want to see what
> kind of flakes we put up with, well, there's a representative sample
> of that in the zine too.
> 
> [1] I know dependent is for the thing that depends rather than the
> thing that's depended on, but is there an adjective for going the
> other way?  Saying "depended-on projects" would be more correct but
> unwieldly.  I suppose I could say "dependencies" but that loses a bit
> of precision as to what kind of thing it is.

"Prerequisite"?


* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://linuxgazette.net *