Solution for Up2date problems

[Fred Nastos]

On January 6, 2004 11:28 pm, William Hooper wrote:
> Fred Nastos said:
> [snip]
>
> > Secons, all the cries to "search the archives" are falling on
> > deaf ears since a newbie, especially those coming from a non-redhat
> > distribution experience, don't even know where the archives are.
> > Again, why isn't this linked from the website?  On
> > http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/ it gives clear
> > instructions on how to join the mailing-lists,
>
> And on the page to join the mailing list is a link to the archives, which
> include a search engine.

But, you don't even need to get to that page to join the list.

Let's say I'm a newbie (which I essentially am) I go to
http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/ and it says "Since the project is
new, there aren't any docs other than the Release Notes
at this time."  It provides a link to the Release Notes.  

So, as a newbie, I would click on Release Notes link, which takes
me to http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/ and scrolling
down I see:

-- begin paste --
For more information, refer to the Fedora Project website:
http://fedora.redhat.com/
In addition to the website, the following mailing lists are available:
    * fedora-list at redhat.com  For users of Fedora Core releases
    * fedora-test-list at redhat.com  For testers of Fedora Core test releases
    * fedora-devel-list at redhat.com  For developers, developers, developers
    * fedora-docs-list at redhat.com  For participants of the docs project
To subscribe to any of these lists, send an email with the word "subscribe"
in the subject to <listname>-request  (where <listname>  is one of the
above list names.)
-- end paste --

The website it gives (http://fedora.redhat.com) is just the same
website that led me to this page.  But, it gives instructions for
joining the mailing list right there.  After that there's some
talk about IRC channels and then a section titled Hardware
Requirements.  No where is there a link to the mailing list
web page (i.e. http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list)

> > but why not
> > include something like, "Before posting a question to
> > the mailing list, why not search the archives first to see
> > if your problem has been answered.  To search the archives
> > go to http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/"
>
> Isn't this common sense?  The reason it falls on deaf ears are because
> some people feel it isn't worth their time to learn and just want someone
> to give them the answer.

Yes, that is likely true for the majority of cases, but hopefully
in some cases the user just wasn't able to find the mailing-list
info.

> And no, that sentence wasn't directed at anyone
> in particular.  I've seen it in every mailing list and forum I've ever
> seen.

Me too.  Been guilty of it myself...