Re: Suggestion

I tend to be a little slow myself.  I use digest mode, which is not conducive 
to an 
immediate response, so I tend to wait to reply, in order to avoid confusing the 
person 
asking by contributing to an inundation, as it were.

That said, I tend to reply more often when the issue falls into my experience 
or is 
something I am very expert at, like for example scuba diving or sleeping 
<grin>.  
Well, or maybe data mining using SQL, record level access from VB or C, TCP/IP 
configuration, etc.

I don't hesitate to post when I have a problem I can't figure out on my own (or 
by 
searching the archives & ibm.com), I've gotten a lot of help from this list 
(and I think 
I've contributed, in my own small way), but I'm sure that my contributions are 
outweighed by the help I've received.

It may also be possible that people who "lurk" are simply shy about expressing 
their 
opinions or asking questions. Perhaps their employers also read the lists and 
they 
are afraid of asking questions for fear it might make them look incompetent. 
The only 
answer to that is the old Chinese proverb:  "He who asks is a fool for five 
minutes, 
but he who doesn't ask remains a fool forever."

--Chris


On 6 May 2003 at 22:57, Jim Essinger wrote:

> Jan,
> 
> I do a lot of lurking on this, the COBOL, CODE and WDSc lists.  I have
> some of the answers a lot of the time, but some of the quicker of
> fingers have the answers posted before I get to see the question.  I
> have to do most of my email from home (like now) because I don't have
> internet access at the desk top at work.  I use my personal time and
> email account to try to stay current in a one man shop.  I don't know
> how (or why) you would want to stifle the conversation just because
> someone *might* be using the list to further their career.  That is
> like M$ forcing me to reregister XP (name you version) when I change
> hardware because I *might* be a thief.    Or the music industry copy
> protection because I *might* want to remix a cd to my liking and
> remove some of the crap they put on their version. OR ......
> 
> I guess I don't see the harm in the lurkers, as long as they are not
> doing harm.
> 
> 
> My 2 penny's worth (.0005 Canadian)
> 
> Jim Essinger
> Senior Programmer/Analyst
> Student Loan Fund of Idaho
> 208-452-4058
> 
>