[FFmpeg-devel] netiquette

[Diego Biurrun]

On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 06:38:09PM +0100, madshi wrote:
> Diego Biurrun schrieb:
> > On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 02:04:27PM +0100, madshi wrote:
> >   
> >> Diego Biurrun schrieb:
> >>     
> >>> Stop wasting our time please, Google can answer your questions just fine
> >>> (first hit will do).  Also, our mailing list page should already have
> >>> explained all of this, but you chose to ignore it.  Come back when you
> >>> have a clue about email etiquette, thanks a bundle.
> >>>       
> >> Thank you for the kind words. You really have a gift for motivating people.
> >
> > I can understand your frustration, now please understand mine.  I
> > spelled the rules out quite clearly on the mailing lists page.  What do
> > you suggest I do so that they do not get ignored?
> 
> Diego, I can understand that you're frustrated with people ignoring the 
> mailing list's rules. I really do understand that. There are often 
> people posting in my own forums ignoring all the rules I set. So I 
> really do feel your pain.
> 
> But what I don't understand is how you're weighing my actions. Yes, I 
> did violate some mailing list rules because I didn't read the full 
> instructions. That was wrong and I have already apologized for that (and 
> changed my posting style). But on the positive side I have also come 
> with a fully tested and working bugfix for "your" code. I think you're a 
> developer yourself, aren't you? So you surely know that debugging other 
> people's code is no fun. Furthermore I'm a Delphi developer by heart and 
> doing C++ stuff is really painful for me.

Do not confuse C with C++, they are by no means the same thing.

> Now instead of posting a "thanks" for me spending hours on debugging
> bugs in "your" code you were welcoming me with a "go away" attitude
> just because I dared to post a bugfix before studying the mailing
> list's rules from A to Z. Reading your posts it seems to me that the
> mailing list formatting rules are more important to you than getting
> bugs fixed in ffmpeg. I don't think that's the right approach.

You were debugging a problem you yourself were having, I was not having
that problem.  It is welcome that you share your findings with us, but
that does not excuse you from following the mailing list rules.

I never told you to go away.  I told you to come back when you learned
how to follow the rules.  That's a big difference.  My first message
also just told you that thread hijacking is a good way to get ignored.
This is true.  Most thread hijackers do get ignored completely.  I chose
to point this detail out to you so that you had a chance to avoid this
fate.

I maintain that it is rude to ask questions that Google answers
perfectly on the first hit.  We have explained what top-posting and
thread hijacking is countless times around here.  Spamming the list with
more messages about the subject just degrades the signal to noise ratio.

Naturally if somebody chooses to explain stuff to you in private (as I
have done countless times) that is welcome.

best regards

Diego