[Sugar-devel] Sugar-devel Digest, Vol 24, Issue 36 9Re: how to ask a question)

[Yioryos Asprobounitis]

> Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2010 10:32:42 +1100
> From: James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org>
> To: Bernie Innocenti <bernie at codewiz.org>
> Cc: IAEP <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>,   
> sugar-devel
>     <sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>,   
> David Farning <dfarning at gmail.com>,
>     cjb at laptop.org,   
> Ishan Bansal <ishan at seeta.in>
> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] how to ask a question
> Message-ID: <AF18C0DC-916E-4614-9661-6458E094C50F at laptop.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> On 08/10/2010, at 7:31 PM, Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> > When this happens, we should gently encourage them to
> prefer public
> > communication. I reserve the stronger signals -- such
> as refusing to
> > answer the question until it's posted publicly -- for
> those who are
> > repeatedly ignoring this advice. I'm not running a
> free technical
> > support line.
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> Here is a page with diagram that I use on other projects
> for people who persist in writing privately to me:
> 
> http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/why.phtml
> 
> --
> James Cameron
> System Test Coordinator
> One Laptop per Child
> 
> 

I would not necessarily disagree with the opinions expressed on the matter, but there is a very big gap in SL's communication with it's users.
No place to ask the "stupid/bad/novice/malformed"  questions.
For an organization that caters to 1,5 million kids and few thousand teachers and almost be default computer novices, this is unacceptable (to me).
As a developer of an upstream organization, you may as well say "this is not my problem", however, as a SugarLabs member it should be.
Applying "devel-list rules" to the _only_ Q&A Sugar venue, can seriously contribute to an "unapproachable" image and put off the exact people that you are trying to constructively teach.