Re: Please forget LM MG NR IR SL AU

[David Bobroff]

I've watched this thread from the sidelines and up to now have remained
silent as I didn't want to throw gasoline on a potential flame war.
That is not my intent now, either.

I do have to say that I agree with Nicholas, however.

Nicholas Wastell wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:23:56 +0200 "Valentin Villenave" 
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > 2008/8/12 Nicholas Wastell <address@hidden>:
> >
> > > If you don't like the rtfm questions, don't answer them.  There 
> > > are, fortunately, some folks on the list with an ounce of 
> > > patience and good manners.
> > Graham will probably not answer that, but... if you had been 
> > following discussions on -user and -devel for more than a few 
> > months, I think you would feel sorry for having written that. 
> > There's a reason why Graham can afford being... whatever he is 
> > (though, granted, you can hardly guess this reason from such mails
> >  as this last one).
> >
> > Hint: please have a look at 
> > http://schlitt.info/applications/blog/index.php?/archives/541-10-golden-rules-for-starting-with-open-source.html
> >  (I learned a lot from this page in my days).

I just went through that myself and noticed that #6 is "Be friendly and
open." Ahem.

> Don't patronise me, don't make excuses for Graham and I stand by what
>  I wrote.  I'm sure that he's busy and annoyed rather than rude and 
> unfriendly and I certainly didn't expect him to answer it.  Neither 
> do I expect a rush of messages agreeing with me.

Well, I agree with you, Nicholas.

> The Lilypond lists have an air of exclusivity which is already very 
> intimidating to newcomers.  Overtly abrasive attitude and widespread
>  use of jargon and abbreviations are rife.  What's acceptable and 
> amusing between experienced users and developers doesn't always 
> belong on the surface.

In a general way I'll go along with this, too.  I've felt rebuffed at
times when I'm asking what I believe to be a reasonable question.  I'm
not often sure of the tone as we're dealing with text rather than
speech, but I generally try to take the responses as well intended.
There have been occasions, however, when the response has had obvious
sarcastic or superior tones to it.  While I can't agree that the
abrasive attitudes are rife I will say that I've witnessed abrasive
attitude repeatedly from the same place.  As for the jargon, much is to
be expected on such a list and if it's useful to you you will get to
know it.

> My point is that if he doesn't like the newbie stuff in -user, he 
> should just keep away.  The newbie stuff has to go somewhere; Graham
>  wouldn't be upset by it and the list would be a more welcoming
> place. I no longer post my queries on here, rather I make do with the
>  skills that I can get from my own research, or just fiddle things 
> manually. Frankly, posting a question here scares me, in case I've 
> make a silly mistake or replies are flooded with obscure code.

Again, agreed in many ways.  My understanding of the open source idea is
that one should educate oneself as much as possible.  Sure, that's good.
 But if we're to rely solely on that then the lilypond-user list is
redundant.  I've certainly learned to try to solve my problems with
LilyPond for myself as much as possible but there are times when I hit a
wall and need help.  If you're an übergeek super-user and find some
questions beneath your notice, don't notice them.
> A shame really, as Lilypond is very good software, but the price can
>  be higher that one would imagine.

Once more, I agree for the most part.  LilyPond is great.  I don't want
to touch Finale again nor do I want to learn Sibelius.  As to the
"price"; Since it's an open source project which I find extremely useful
I want to give something back.  I've done some bug reporting and made
suggestions regarding output and I'm quite happy to be included in some
small way.  I've also fielded a few of the really extra-newbie questions 
because I know how it is to be completely stumped and that the 
power-users may not have the patience for it. LilyPond is a great piece 
of software and the more people who use it, the better. If we start 
kicking people in the teeth for every "stupid" question or, more 
importantly, for the *first* "stupid" question, I suspect LilyPond will 
have a smaller set of users.

-David