Re: installing acid on fbsd4.6 for meer mortals

[John Sage <jsage () finchhaven com>]

On Fri, Aug 23, 2002 at 09:57:36AM +0200, HenkP () masana co za wrote:
> I am a newcomer to this list, and my first impressions are not very
> positive. It seems certain people are more interested in flaming than
> actually helping.

I hope you continue to use this list; you will find the regulars to be
quite responsive to those who:

1) appear to have given some effort to answering their questions
themselves, before posting..

2) give full specification of:

   a) OS you're running snort on
   b) what version of snort you're running
   c) what command line parameters you're passing to snort
   d) often, what snort.conf you're using

3) post an actual, specific question, in the form of a question, not a
rambling monologue about how hard something is and how much something
sucks and how the poster is just giving up...


People often expect answers without saying -> specifically <- what the
problem is.

I mean, what is anybody supposed to make of this:

"...I have tried the doc on snort...it can not possible be
correct.... maybe in theory only but not in practice. Something is
missing from that doc. I can not get php4, gd2, phplot to work with
each other and I have not bother to go any further..."


People often expect answers to questions without giving any specifics.

Thus the -> volunteers <- who would like to respond are often forced
to ask a series of preliminary questions before they *begin* to have
enough useful information to begin formulating an answer.

This is for the most part a waste of time; Yes: many of the regulars
won't even bother.


> Suggestion - maybe you should just reply to someone with a oneliner that
> links to the URL for "howto ask the right questions" instead of pulling
> people apart.

It's very often lost on new posters that most of the questions have
been heard before, and before, and before.

That's why there's a FAQ.

As for this specific thread, the original poster "pat"
<hobo () speakeasy net> did absolutely nothing to endear anyone to him or
his problem: go read his original post.

He was lucky he received any response at all.

If I hadn't been in a bad mood, and -> sarcastically <- responded to
his first post he might have received no response whatsoever.

Finally, sarcasm is hardly "..pulling people apart.."


> I thought the object of the list was to help people... If the questions is
> one that offends, then rather ignore it, reacting in this way causes a lot
> of responses from everyone about isuess that has got nothing to do with
> snort... Like this mail of mine, I have better things to do, than to write
> this email.

Posters to any list, who are by definition asking -> volunteers <- for
their time, in help, do have IMNSHO an obligation to ask questions
properly and with some initial courtesy.

The original poster did neither.

None of the rest of us have time to waste, either, you know...


- John
-- 
"In those days, you could not buy a $2000 200MHz Pentium server."

PGP key:     http://www.finchhaven.com/pages/gpg_pubkey.html
Fingerprint: C493 9F26 05A9 6497 9800  4EF6 5FC8 F23D 35A4 F705


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