RFDs, Lists & Usenet: One Non-Advanced, Non-Developer User's Perspective - Mailing list pgsql-general

hi all,

after a fairly long hiatus from pgsql, i've recently (re)joined the community,
and have dropped into the middle of the what-do-we-do-abt-newsgroups thread.

i thought i'd add my lil' ol' voice w/ some 'objective, unbiased' (yeah, right
...) comments.

(1) in general, i honestly don't care what mechanism i use to communicate w/
'those in the know'.  if 'they' are accessible on a number of forums/media,
then what drives my choice of venue is, frankly, the quality of my client
software -- email client, usenet client, rss clients, etc, etc.

it's frankly a pretty good bet that if i'm actually using pgsql, then i'm
fairly handy at using different knowledge-retrieval tools/mechanisms as well.

the tool/forum, imho, is the *leasst* important issue ...

(2) as a user, what i'm personally after is the ability to dig-n-learn.  to
that end non-brain-dead *search* is paramount, as well as the ability to
track-back a thread without wanting to blow my head off.

i'm sure all the 'gurus' here have read & remembered every thread-n-post ever
made here, but some of us actually end up RE-asking an already asked-n-answered
question.

ever wonder why?  the typical presumtion seems to be that "we" are simply lazy
or stupid ... (if i had a nickel for every "RTFM" flame i'd rec'd!)

rather, its often cuz its simply tough to find an answer wading through
unproductive search results.  GoogleGroups search?  browse the archives?  half
the time leads to the nothing-but-irrelevant-crap thread.  what i wouldn't give
for access to a really 'elegant' search capability ...

AND, some of us actually are trying to juggle _integrating_ "27" different
packages, and really can't juggle becoming 'developers' on every one.

before y'all flame me to death -- yes, there are, of course, exceptions ...

(3) to the searchability argument, my personal favorite mailing list
access/retrieval example?  the Cyrus (IMAP, SASL, etc) mailing lists.  They're
archived & available via anonymous IMAP.  Sure its resource intensive for
*them*, but I can search -- as deeply as necessary -- through their ENTIRE
archive, using my tools (Mulberry IMAP client & a local search tool, in this
case).  its still tough, but its a lot easier -- for me -- than the web-based
solutions

(4) MOST IMPORTANT of all is the attitude of the community.  yep, its the
people NOT the technology that as a user (and, btw, as a decision
influencer/maker for my company & clients) i'm drawn to / repulsed by.
'community' is a 2-way street ... it's important that established members have
some patience, leave the ego/attitude 'at the door'.  objectively, its
immensely important -- and pleasantly impressive -- that 'a Tom Lane' (e.g.)
will take time with a 'newbie' w/o biting their head off.

bottom line?  'community' is about support.  if it's not 'pleasant & useful' to
ask questions, then the particualr technology doesn't matter a hill-o-beans.
if the goal of a projet/community really is growth/adoption of the product,
then support must be an _inclusive_ mechanism/process.

all that said, as a 'newbie', i can tell you that much of the
back-n-forth-flaming here smacks a bit much of "i'm not interested in tech'y X,
and as this is all abt *me*, those damn-pesky users can just get used to the
fact that they'll need to come to me ..."

yes, I KNOW, there's more being discussed here, but -- just like the pub-crawls
of our collective youth -- 1st impressions _do_ matter =)

here's hoping that all this blather is taken in the helpful spirit it's
intended!

cheers,

richard