[rad] Re: SOLVED Re: pseudo-newbie exec scripts and session-time

[Charles Gregory]

On Mon, 15 Jun 2009, A.L.M.Buxey at lboro.ac.uk wrote:
> Charles, this is an unpaid community support list. you are coming
> across as a very angry person with no regard that the people
> on this list arent paid to give you informaation which is probably
> essential for you to actually do your work, get paid etc.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself. The thing which makes me angry is 
not that people choose to be unhelpful. If Mr. DeKok really thinks I'm not 
worth his time and just doesn't answer my posts, then I have no problem 
with that. I end up doing exactly what I *did* do: I worked it out on my 
own.

What angers me is when I get accused of doing things I didn't do, or of 
rejecting help I didn't receive. This can be subtle. If someone says 'go 
read the docs' am I 'rejecting' that suggestion when I believe I've 
alredy read all the relevant documentation I could find? It is even more 
angering when you consider that the original question was to ask where 
there might be more docs/examples.... At any point someone could have 
said, "did you look in /usr/shar/docs/README. I'd feel like a dummy, but I 
would have gotten an important clue about one way to do this. Instead, I 
read the man pages, and read the comments in the config files, and I'm 
sorry, but they were confusing to the point of being misleading.

I'm not asking that people correct docs for an old version, but please 
stop accusing me of failing to do my legwork or heed suggestions to read 
those docs when I've SAID I've done it already.

Yes, makes me quite angry. :)

> if you'd actually like any help/advice in the future from the community 
> its probably best that you realise we are all humans, we too suffer from 
> undocumented bits (and then use the WIKI or the mailing list to 
> disemminate such information) rather than make a big hoo haa out of such 
> a piffling little issue and personally attack people.

Actually I'm making a big 'hoo haa' out of being personally attacked with 
these blatantly false claims. Someone with Mr. Dekok's (now) obvious 
knowledge and expertise should never say "I have no idea", like I had 
failed to even lay out the basic intent and method I was trying to use.
He made it sound like I had posted little or nothing about what I was 
trying to do. As near as you can get to lying about me as I think you can 
with a clever indirect statement. And yes, lying about me really angers 
me.

> one day you may need to real help regarding a feature or option....

With respect, why would that be any different than now? That's my point 
about making the big fuss. If the people who *could* help don't reflect 
and refine their understanding of *how* they help, then even if I shut my 
mouth and was very polite, I would have no expectation of ever getting any 
help on anything that I could not look up myself in a man page or file.
Yes, I'm well aware that I could be shooting myself in the foot by 
angering the people who might help me, but they *weren't* helping, so 
really, I lose nothing. While I might stand to gain proper understanding 
of how I was not helped and by extension, help not only myself but anyone 
else in a similar 'newbie' position in future.

> I can't predict the future but i can say the future is always more 
> promising if you can look back and say you've never burnt your bridges.

To be honest, if I wanted to burn bridges I would just unsubscribe from 
the group. Burn and forget. No, I'm still hanging onto the assumption that 
the people who argue so passionately actually *do* care, and if I can 
convince them that they fell short in this case, and that not all the 
blame is mine, then maybe that will be of lasting benefit, rather than 
leaving things at the status quo, where a certain percentage of people 
just don't get help (even though others think they are).

Thanks for your thoughts Alan. I know I'm an angry argumentative person, 
but I always do so with the intent to make things BETTER.

- Charles