[Python-Dev] Python-dev signal-to-noise processing question (original) (raw)

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Tue Jul 20 19:51:07 CEST 2010

On 7/20/2010 6:59 AM, Oleg Broytman wrote:

I know, the task of sending answers like I've sent is quite unappreciated.

I appreciate it. I mostly do not respond to such because I expect you or Aahz will.

I know, the meaning of my answer is rude because, in short, it's simply "Please, go away", and however I stress the "please" part it's still "go away". If I were a help seeker it'd be quite a hard blow for me to receive such an answer. Yes, I know.

  1. I suggested one improvement to the canned response in my previous post: expand 'using' to 'using or understanding'.

  2. Here is another: mention that Python developers who are willing to answer non-development questions already participate on python-list/gmane.comp.python.general to answer such questions there.

  3. That brings up: also mention gmane.comp.python.general, for those like me who prefer the newsgroup interface.

  4. Alexander Belopolsky wrote: "People dislike canned responses no matter how friendly and polite they sound. I believe python-dev tradition is to redirect the poster to python-list but still include at least a hint to what the answer to his or her question is."

I believe you did do that, but it was easily missed. So: end the boilerplate with

and put hints here so they stand out.

Still, two other alternatives are even worse. The first alternative is to not answer "using" questions at all; quite rude. The second is answer all questions and make the developers quit the list and found a new quiet one.

I brought up that same possibility.

I don't see any other alternative, do you? Of those three - which one do you prefer? The original question was about using python, that's my understanding.

I agree that it appeared to be, but it was phrased in terms of understanding its operation, hence the claim that it was not, and hence suggestion 1) above.

-- Terry Jan Reedy

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list