Topic: SME server forum Guidelines

[cactus]

Getting back to Christians initial post. I agree with a sticky post on top of every board with a topic indicating to read this post before posting is a good idea. I must admit I did not spot http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Community on the wiki.

It is still a hidden gem as Christian and I worked on it but never 'released' it to the community. If we agree on a sticky on every forum I can do so.

[christian]

It is still a hidden gem as Christian and I worked on it but never 'released' it to the community. If we agree on a sticky on every forum I can do so.

Sorry to disappear; I was traveling again!

Cactus, I believe that was your original suggestion in the bug tracker and I'm fine with this. Per my comment in the bug as well, the way CentOS does it is to have its own category at the top level, as per:
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/index.php?cat=3

I'm fine either way you wish to proceed.

[johnp]

Adding a sticky would be a step forward, but I don't know if it will be read. Maybe something that will redirect to such info before asking may be better. If there is a captcha requirement, maybe some sticky or info page sould be too.

[sal1504]

Everyone

I to have used the forum and have received some excellent support and I have received some "rude" remarks. I love SME and have it installed at many clients. I try to answer questions as I can, typically on hardware compatibilty. The reason I post on the forum before posting on the bugtracker is because I am not sure whether my problem is a user error or an sme error. So far they have all been user error or compatibility issues with hardware. I research my issues both on this forum and many other linux forums (centos, redhat, ubuntu, etc.) before posting on the web. The statement made about newbies NEVER reading is just Stefano being Stefano. Here is something we should all consider. SME Server survives on donations. The more people you piss off with rude remarks the less chance of getting donations from Newbies, myself included. Even though I have donated before I probably would donate more if there wasn't the fear of being yelled at because I wasn't sure if my question belongs in a bugtracker or not. I think that a friendlier forum would help support SME better.

Sal

[Stefano]

The statement made about newbies NEVER reading is just Stefano being Stefano

please define, preferably via PM, thank you

[christian]

Hi Sal,
While I'm sure you want to make a point, I would appreciate it if you didn't hi-jack this thread to do so. It is not good etiquette. This thread is focused on a defining a constructive solution. Comments in that vein are welcome.
Christian

[CharlieBrady]

SME Server survives on donations.

That is not true. The contribs.org website stays on-line due to donations. SME Server survives (barely) due to unpaid labour by a small pool of regular contributors.

[sal1504]

Charlie and Christian

I am trying to offer a constructive observation, that in order to grow it is better not offend your users with kurt conversation and rude remarks. I have owned my consulting firm for 20 years, if I was asked a technical question by one of my customers and I told him to read the manual or post his question on a bug tracker he would laugh in my face and get some other company to do his work. So goes it with SME. Although SME is, in my opinion one of the best Distro for my customers, it is not the only one. If i am looking for a software to use for my customers one of the first things I look for is how easy is it for me to get support and answers to my questions. If I see submit this to the bug tracker or read the manual, or remarks like the one Stefano makes ( on a regular basis). I will look for something else. When I first started using SME this forum was one of the best on the net. Unfortunately it has gone down in quality. I am recommending that the tone of this forum becomes more friendly. You will find an increase in donations both in the form of money and people willing to contribute time to help. Charlie when I said "survived on donations" i meant both money and labour. Stefano I once before told you were rude. That is what I meant when I said that's Stefano being Stefano.


I hope what i am saying will be taken  constructively.


Sal

[CharlieBrady]

I have owned my consulting firm for 20 years, if I was asked a technical question by one of my customers and I told him to read the manual or post his question on a bug tracker he would laugh in my face and get some other company to do his work.

What if you were asked the technical question by a passer-by on the street? The difference here is that you are not my customer. If you were my customer, I might respond to your questions differently.

Please think about it. They way that your business works is not a perfect analogy.

If you wish to answer technical questions without referring people to read the manual or to post bug reports to the bug tracker, then you are welcome to.

[sal1504]

Charlie

We do offer free 5 minute technical support to people who are not our customers. Because we do this we have landed some of our largest clients. I answered a networking question to this guy at a party and he was the CEO of a medical clinic that is now a $125000 a year plus hardware client. They have purchased 13 servers and 250 windows workstations from me since I took the time to answer a question two years ago. I quess what I am trying to say is it is just as easy to be nice as it is to be rude and has a better out come everytime. Also like I said I try to answer questions if I have the answer and I would like to think that other users of this forum would do the same. If you don't want to answer the questions then just ignore them, it would be a more positive response then some of the crap that is posted.

Stefano, I have said this on this forum before and will say it one more time,  you are without a doubt one of the rudest people on this forum and  if you did not respond to any of the questions this forum would be 100% better.

I have now said my piece and will end with, SME is without a doubt a great product and I hope that this negative attitude on the forum does not kill the product but if it does oh well there are other products.

Sal

[cactus]

Stefano, I have said this on this forum before and will say it one more time,  you are without a doubt one of the rudest people on this forum and  if you did not respond to any of the questions this forum would be 100% better.

Please,refrain from this behavior yourself. Making accusations like that is not helping either and counter-intuitive to your plea IMHO.[/quote]

You will find an increase in donations both in the form of money and people willing to contribute time to help.

I think you are making wrong assumptions here. The last year more people have stepped up to do development and more people have taken the effort to do verification on bugs, despite the so called less friendly attitude. I think the community is changing as well, since more and more smaller users are coming into the SME Server community. Their background is different, knowledge is lower, or not up to par and I think a lot, amongst which I am as well, think that you need to some work yourself. Studying the documentation is one of them.

It is not a problem that you do not know everything, no one does, it is a problem that you do not want to learn anything by investing yourself. I tend to think there are people on these forums who think it is way easier to just shoot out a question and wait for the answers.
My time is precious and can only be spent once, if I know the answer and it is already been documented I feel no lust to rewrite it again, so I try and provide a link to the documentation accompanied by an encouragement to read it, at least twice.

[sal1504]

cactus

you are right i should NOT belittle myself by stooping to the level of others. Sorry but I was trying to make a point of how it feels to be treated rudely by some on this forum. There are several people on this forum that have the right attitude, you, mary, charlie are a few. Instead of just throwing out a comment a about how lazy some people are you take the time to point us to an article or a document with a possible fix. I am glad that there is more involvement I was responding to apparently inaccurate information posted by Charlie (The contribs.org website stays on-line due to donations. SME Server survives (barely) due to unpaid labour by a small pool of regular contributors). I do my research before posting. I limit myself to two days to research then if I do not have an anwer I post it. One of the things I find distracting in researching problems on SME is the format of the bug tracker. I can not be specific about what is wrong I just find it hard to use and time consuming. I guess I don't feel it is organized very well, this is just my opinion.

Sal

[Stefano]

Sal, I just took some time to think how to answer you..

as you (maybe) know I'm not a english mothertongue, so, maybe, some time I write simply translating my italian thoughts into english.. the words I choose could be correct.. but there's no intention to offend no-one

anyway, each time I answer here I try to do my best.. as you can see from my profile I did start only a few topics (i.e. few questions).. and I can't really think I wrote more than 3 thousands messages of crap

you said:

I have owned my consulting firm for 20 years, if I was asked a technical question by one of my customers and I told him to read the manual or post his question on a bug tracker he would laugh in my face and get some other company to do his work

well, first of all this is a forum, a free forum, not an helpdesk.. if I am a customer of yours I expect you to know how to help me.. then I pay you.. anyway, sometime it's necessary to tell your customers to read the documentation, so I did with mine.. and no one of them left me; the problem seems to be on your side

anyway, in this forum there are people from everywhere (from italy and mexico AFAIR, but for sure from other countries) that had free consultancy from me to rebuild their servers after big issues (try to remove smeserver-clamav with yum and give Y and then you know what I'm talking about).. hours of work simply to help someone.. and to improve my skills and my troubleshooting ability

then, am I rude? sorry, I'm sorry.. but you are not better than me.. I asked you to contact me (I have public email/site), you prefer to continue here..

you hide yourself behind a coward nickname, I use my real name, my real email.. if you search a little with google you can easily find my address, my surname..

if you are not satisfied with this support, you can always start to pay for it (contact me in private), start making donation to the project or simply return the money you have spent and leave..

you use words like "crap, rude" referring to me and my posts.. I expect some clarification from you via PM, skype or msn.. but, since I do the effort to write in english, I ask you to do in italian, to make you understand the difficulty.
I hope your italian is as good as my english is.

finally about

I am trying to offer a constructive observation..
..
I hope what i am saying will be taken  constructively.

I think this has nothing constructive; it seems to be a simple flame bite..

please, seriously, take this out of the forums..

Stefano

p.s. after the "rude moderators" 3ad, Mjohnson contacted  me on skype.. some well spent time clarifying ourselves, no problem.

[sal1504]

Sorry to all i have offended. I now see the complications for running a forum with multi-country affiliation. What I was trying to point out, if you can't offer a civil suggestion than don't post. End of conversation.

Sal

[CharlieBrady]

What I was trying to point out, if you can't offer a civil suggestion than don't post.

I think the only one I have seen here being uncivil is you Sal. I have also reviewed your posts, and you have asked for voluminous help, and offered very little in return. If you wish to help our here, then please do, but please refrain from criticising those who do the heavy lifting here on a regular basis.

Stefano, please keep up the good work. And I'm sorry that you had to waste your time defending yourself.