From Eric Steven Raymond's excellent "How To Ask Questions the Smart
Way" page:
Dealing with rudeness
Much of what looks like rudeness in hacker circles is not intended to
give offense. Rather, it's the product of the direct,
cut-through-the-bullshit communications style that is natural to people
who are more concerned about solving problems than making others feel
warm and fuzzy.
When you perceive rudeness, try to react calmly. If someone is really
acting out, it is very likely a senior person on the list or newsgroup
or forum will call him or her on it. If that doesn't happen and you lose
your temper, it is likely that the person you lose it at was behaving
within the hacker community's norms and you will be considered at fault.
This will hurt your chances of getting the information or help you want.
On the other hand, you will occasionally run across rudeness and
posturing that is quite gratuitous. The flip-side of the above is that
it is acceptable form to slam real offenders quite hard, dissecting
their misbehavior with a sharp verbal scalpel. Be very, very sure of
your ground before you try this, however. The line between correcting an
incivility and starting a pointless flamewar is thin enough that hackers
themselves not infrequently blunder across it; if you are a newbie or an
outsider, your chances of avoiding such a blunder are low. If you're
after information rather than entertainment, it's better to keep your
fingers off the keyboard than to risk this.
(Some people assert that many hackers have a mild form of autism or
Asperger's Syndrome, and are actually missing some of the brain
circuitry that lubricates "normal" human social interaction. This may or
may not be true. If you are not a hacker yourself, it may help you cope
with our eccentricities if you think of us as being brain-damaged. Go
right ahead. We won't care; we like being whatever it is we are, and
generally have a healthy skepticism about clinical labels.)
In the next section, we'll talk about a different issue; the kind of
"rudeness" you'll see when you misbehave
John Arnold
(301) 354-2939
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of SJL
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 2:45 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: SQL QUERY
Srinivas -
Please read Eric Steven Raymond's excellent "How To Ask Questions the
Smart Way" page and follow *his* advice:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
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