[Samba] Getting and providing help on this list (was "Printing on Samba with WinNT...")

[Kurt Pfeifle]

> Re: [Samba] Printing on Samba with WinNT...
> 
>     * To: Rainer Hantsch <rainer at hantschdotcodotat>
>     * Subject: Re: [Samba] Printing on Samba with WinNT...
>     * From: John H Terpstra <jht at sambadotorg>
>     * Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:29:34 +0000 (GMT)
> 

[...]

>> I know that noone owes an answer to anyone, but get into my situation:
>> You have some angry people sitting in your neck, permamently telling you that
>> they still cannot do this and that. Googleing around results in useless
>> things. Finally you decide to subscribe this list to get help, ask more than 3
>> times - in kindly words - and get no useful answer, if any, only suggestions
>> which sound in the best meaning as patches.  :-/
>> Anyway, I beg your pardon.
> 
> This is a volunteer list. I spend over 3 hours per day helping people. It
> would take an army of people like me to answer fully all requests we
> receive.

I very, very, very much appreciate John T.'s answers on this list.
He is most of the time giving very precise, hitting on the nail's top
answers, and he also very often gives enough background info to not
only reproduce the solution by slavishly copying the settings he
suggests, but also understand *why* it works this way.

> That means that many questions go unanswered. We would all like
> to see more help activity.
> 

It would change dramatically if at least 25% of people who successfully
acquired help on this list would feel obliged to give the same help
to other newbies only on one occasion.

> A significant number of people subscribe to this list in the hope of
> getting a quick and painless answer to their spacific problem. It may take
> someone 15-30 minutes to think through what they want and to offer a
> simple reply. The alternatives to do this are:
> 
> 	1. Do not repsond - leave the person to sort their own way through
> 		our documentation. Usualy, that does cause frustration.
> 
> 	2. Point them to the HOWTO - but that irritates someone who just
> 		wants an instant answer so they can get on with life.
> 

One other options is this:

    -- anybody who ever got real quick and to the point help on this
       list should feel obliged to "give back" that help. He should
       stay and watch for another newbie to appear, and answer a questions
       he knows to answer. This could safe some time to John and others
       to work on the perfections of the written documentation, or of
       other Samba developers to work on the code and bugfixing....

> We would love to learn what can be done to provide perfect documentation
> so that everyone can find instant answers. :-)) Until that time, the best
> advice is that there is no substitute for doing your own research - and I
> do not mean to offend with that statement.
> 

...and give back what you learned in that research to any newbie
asking a simple question.

> 
> - John T.
> 

Cheers,
Kurt