The sprit of this newsgroup!

[Irmen de Jong]

Nothing to do with Python, but I wanted to share this with you anyway.

Very recently I had a problem with data migration to an Oracle database. 
Because I am quite inexperienced with Oracle databases, and couldn't find 
the info I needed for my problem, I decided to ask about it on the
comp.databases.oracle newsgroup.

Apparently I shouldn't have done that.

A few replies of people that tried to give some suggestions, didn't help for 
me. I tried to explain my problem better and told them that their 
suggestions weren't appropriate for the problem I was encountering.

Then there appeared a quite rude reply from a certain person that I shall 
not name. He called himself a senior DBA and apparently was very proud of 
that, because he actually told me that if I knew better I should not post 
and see for myself! I was a bit baffled by that response because that means 
that he was so convinced about the correctness and completeness of his 
knowledge about Oracle that people who don't know that much about better 
keep their mouths shut and not ask silly questions in the newsgroup.

So I told him what I felt about his response, more or less like this:
if you don't want to help me, why not shut up and just ignore my questions.

That triggered a very angry response from his part, he told me in my native 
language that because "I knew it all better" and was ignoring the advice of 
the people who know it all better, I'd better fuck off and go on meddling 
myself. "No greetings" from him.

I was shocked. What was going on here? I was curious what kind of guy writes 
such responses to simple, innocent questions on the newsgroup.
 From a bit of googling around in the archives I learned that this guy is 
actually known of being a very rude person that appears to flame newbies on 
a regular basis. He may be a skillfull Oracle DBA, but it appears that he 
doesn't want to spend his time on helping out people that can't figure out 
some simple (or not?) problems. But he does spend his time giving useless 
replies, often with rude content. Truly sad.


Why do I tell you all this?

Because this newsgroup is *so different*!!

I hurried back to comp.lang.python and found myself again in a very 
pleasant, friendly newsgroup in which "even the experts" try to be helpful 
and social to newbies, even if the simplest of questions are asked.
I think that is the spirit of usenet. Help eachother out, share your 
knowledge, and if you think a question is stupid, then just don't answer,
because you can use that time and energy for better things.

My experience above just made me more aware of this.
Thank you, guys and gals on comp.lang.python.


Regards
Irmen de Jong.