Re: Abuse of follow-up (was: Dialog, was Cross posting)

"Mike Easter" <MikeE@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in news:13jidqhou3fjqd1
@corp.supernews.com:

Ohmster wrote:
"Mike Easter"

How do you do, Mike. I really did not expect "all of this" when I made my
reply...

I had read in a newsgroup FAQ somewhere that cross posting is okay as
long as you limit it to three or less groups or it is considered spam
or a hopeless newbie.

Such faq/s have a completely different 'philosophy' about crossposting
than do I. Some I've seen almost encourage crossposting and simply
tell
people to crosspost not multipost. That does not suit the way I think
about it.

Alrighty then, point taken.

Now that made sense to me. It was also
suggested that one should set a follow up to condense all of the
replies in one place. This also seemed like a good idea.

I understand the concept and I completely disagree with the idea. You
should 'research' your question/issue by using GG. You will probably
find the answer if you do, but maybe not. During your research, you
will encounter several groups where similar problems have been
discussed. That should cause you to be interested in posting into one
of them.

Oh I use google all the time, that is where I get most of my answers
from. Nothing is sweeter than to be vexed with a computer problem and
then finding "just the right answer" by googling for it. Sometimes the
answers that I see can be rather elusive though.

If you are already familiar with all of the groups which are potential
groups for you to post, then you should post to the one which you
already know would be the best. If you don't already know a group and
think that it might be appropriate to post into, then you should go
read
several scores of posts into that group to get a feeling for it to help
you decide if it is the best group for your question, and then you
should subscribe to it and post your question there.

Of course that is a sensible approach. Sometimes just reading a few posts
in a newsgroup is not enough to "get a feel for it", especially if the
group traffic has been low. Sometimes many groups that might seem
perfectly appropriate turn out to be troll havens where they bait trolls
and then have a party bashing them. A totally stupid waste of time and
resources, IMHO. I really don't know why people engage in this behavior
but they do seem to thrive on it at times.

Not more than one group, even if more than one group could possibly
accommodate your qeustion. The different groups are different and the
very next reply is going to be made by one person in one group and it
will no longer be appropriate for several groups and the one person's
reply may be a person like myself who would snip out any more than one
group when he replies.

I cannot say I totally agree with that summary, Mike. If I had a network
issue and posted to comp.os.linux.networking, I would think that to be
the best place to put the question. However, alt.os.linux is a good
"general" Linux newsgroup and if the answer cannot be found there, at
least there are enough knowledgeable people in there to direct me to the
right newsgroup or resource, or at least this is what I have found to be
true.

Say I cannot get my eth0 port on the Internet

I think that using one specific example is an excellent idea than the
concept of blather about generic ideas.

Very much agreed.

so I post to
comp.os.linux.networking, probably the best choice for this question.

Not necessarily. comp.os.linux.networking is a good 'name' for a group
considering some networking problems and it is a big 8 group, but it
may
not be a group you are familiar with and it may not be a friendly group
and it may not be the best group for your specific networking problem.

Really now. I have gotten some of the most excellent help from that
newsgroup. Those people in there know a lot about networking, many of
them do it for a living (Something that I often think about switching
careers to myself.) and have in most cases, gotten me up and running
again.

But, I read alt.os.linux a lot and respect the individuals in there
and consider them knowledgeable so I want my question there as well.

I don't think I agree with the concept that that would be an
appropriate
group for your question, as a single group, and I don't believe in
crossposting, so I don't think you should be posting it there at all.

Well then, that is where we have to agree to disagree. I think that cross
posting is alright if it is kept on topic, is not spam, and addresses a
genuine issue that can possibly be solved by addressing more than one
particular newsgroup. I see nothing wrong with it, although I would for
sure limit my crossposts to 3 or less. More than that indicates a problem
with the OP, rather than the system, IMHO.

Since I run a Fedora system, I might be inclined to include the
question to redhat.networking.general in the hope that someone
knowledgeable to my system could reply. In this case, would it be
appropriate to set a follow up to group? And if so, what newsgroup
would you recommend.

If you hangout in a fedora group, and you know that there are some in
that group who are likely to be capable of contributing to the
solution,
maybe that would be the best group.

The Fedora newsgroup, redhat.networking.general, at the time of the post,
had 0 posts in it, in effect, a dead newsgroup, but I used it for the
sake of example. I would like to see more traffic in there but at the
time, such was not the case. I would not expect to find answers in a dead
newsgroup.

Remember the question is:
I cannot get eth0 on the Internet on my Fedora Core 6 machine.

The cross posted groups are:
comp.os.linux.networking
alt.os.linux
redhat.networking.general

I think I would go read in the redhat.networking.general if I weren't
already familiar with it and if I liked the group I would probably post
my question there and only there.

I just looked again and there are some posts in
redhat.networking.general. Maybe I was looking at the wrong newsgroup or
something before. 11/1/07 is the latest post, then 10/15/07, 2 other
October posts, then they go to December 2006, and back from 12/20/2006,
about 20 posts in 2006, then 2005, etc. Not a lot of recent traffic
though. Still it might be worth trying.

You are saying that if I post such a question, that I should not set a
follow up-to group but rather allow the respondants the option of
setting the followupto group?

No. I'm saying you should post your question to one group and one
group
only and choose your group appropriately so that one group is the best
group to ask the question.

That is how I normally do things. I only cross post when there is some
situation of urgency and I need an answer fast or the question did not
get much of a response in one group so I will try others. Crossposting is
not something I do often.

How come and how would you deal with
this situation? (Not just Mike, but everyone. I replied to Mike
because he is well known and considered knowledlgable.)

People always think that their problem is so important and they want to
reach as many people as possible who might be willing and able to
answer
their question -- but they are forgetting that

-1- there are going to be people like me who are going to be
addressing
their question in the group where they read the question and trimming
all other groups

-2- there are going to be people like others who like to filter who
are
going to be filtering out your crossposted message and they might be
the
very one who could answer your question and

-3- it is misguided to think that everyone who replies to your
question
should have their replies crossposted into the same groups that you
chose for your own special reasons.

Now I am really curious and want to know what is the correct or at
least by general consensus, the acceptable thing to do.

Well, you have my opinion at least. You should research your question
sufficiently and research your groups of interest sufficiently that you
can post your question into one group, and that's where all of the fups
are going to be as well.


All very good points and food for thought. Thanks for your input Mike.

--
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