[aclug-L] Re: I am a smeghead (Letter of apology)

[John Alexander <john.alexander@xxxxxxxx>]

Just a real quick, possibly unrelated, point. Any time somebody tells you
that they are a guru, they are probably lying to you. If somebody tells you
that somebody else is a guru, they could be, relative to the person telling
you, but not relative to yourself. Always keep these precepts in mind
whenever you hear that word.

ja

> -----Original Message-----
> From: discussion-bounce@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:discussion-bounce@xxxxxxxxx]On
> Behalf Of Greg House
> Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 4:55 PM
> To: discussion@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [aclug-L] Re: I am a smeghead (Letter of apology)
>
>
> On Sun, 19 Apr 1998, you wrote:
>
> > I think the reason that many of the people think that ACLUG
> does not cater to
> > newbies is because it doesn't really. I see that the reason may
> be that you
> > all (original ACLUG) started out together as mostly newbies.
> Those newbies
> > have now done one of 2 things, 1) become gurus (or experenced
> users at least)
> > 2) left.
>
> I still see lots of questions on the discussion list that sound like
> newbie-type things. I don't think that all the inexperienced
> users have left.
> And I don't think that those of us that have been around a little
> longer have
> all become gurus. I sure haven't. I've gotten better, but nowhere
> near guru
> status.
>
> > It problably started out where you were "all" newbies who
> started moving on to
> > a little more advanced items, and a little more, until now where either
> > newbies learn very quickly(as I have done), or leave.
>
> When I started, a couple of years or so ago, I was a total newbie. I'd
> installed Linux a couple of times, trying different
> distributions, but still
> hadn't gotten a system fully functional. Some of the meetings I
> went to were
> way over my head, but they always sent me home thinking, with
> some notes to go
> study things about. I'd come home read some HOWTOs, man pages, or
> maybe some of
> an LDP doc and things would make more sense. I never felt like
> anyone demeaned
> me for being a newbie. In fact, people were generally very helpful.
>
> Now, that doesn't necessarily mean ALL my questions got answered.
> There were a
> couple I asked that were never answered by the group. I always
> figured this was
> because they dealt with something that nobody had any experience with. If
> someone asks something on the mailing list that I don't know
> about, I don't
> answer (rather then writing back and saying that I don't know
> about it, that
> seems like a waste of bandwidth). If I see a question that hasn't gotten
> answered in awhile, even if I don't know the answer, I may
> respond with some
> additional questions or directions that someone might look to try
> and find the
> answer themself. I'd appreciate it if someone did that much for me.
>
> > I think that a sister group that starts with basically all
> newbies and starts
> > working up might be a good idea, and if some of the gurus drop
> in to give
> > presentations sometimes, then all the better. But, it should
> basically be a
> > seperate group whose members  organize things and go on their
> own voyage of
> > discovery. The ACLUG should try to recrute as many people from
> the community
> > as possible, and get them together and let them go on pretty
> much their own.
>
> I don't personally think this is a very good idea. Going to a group where
> NOBODY knows the topic at hand very well isn't going to help
> anyone learn it.
> I've learned a lot by going to the ACLUG meetings and reading the
> list because
> there are so many people here that have good experience that I
> can learn from.
> If everyone was where I was at, it might be a nice social group,
> but for the
> purpose of education, it would be limited.
>
> I haven't been to the meetings in quite awhile, since Monday &
> Tuesday nights
> have gotten very busy for me, but I never noticed the meetings
> being unfriendly
> to new users. In fact, the Q&A sessions for the half hour before
> the meetings
> were usually pretty interesting when I was going. Have things changed?
>
> Greg
>
>
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