[FFmpeg-devel] Problems compiling FFMPEG in MingW

[Diego Biurrun]

On Wed, Apr 02, 2008 at 07:13:24PM +0000, Ramiro Polla wrote:
> Diego Biurrun <diego <at> biurrun.de> writes:
> > > Go-away messages are getting unnecessarily aggressive lately...
> > > How about you fetch the old nice ones you used to write and just
> > > copy&paste those instead? I mean the ones that actually point
> > > the user to some place he can get help.
> > 
> > The point is that I really do want those lamers to go away!  Not a
> > single day passes anymore without seeing top-posting, threads broken and
> > hijacked and offtopic messages.  Also, this problem is gettting worse
> > and worse.
> > 
> > What do you suggest in order to *reduce* the problem?
> 
> Simply saying "go away" doesn't help the user in getting his problem
> resolved,

Of course.  This is intentional.  If the problem gets resolved, the
action is effectively rewarded.

> and will just make it look like nobody cares or is willing
> to help him.

But this is true!  I am not willing to help people out with compilation
problems, nor do I care about "Me trouble wav file, need libavcodecs
assistance, pls help, urgent job !!!".  If I were, I would be subscribed
to the mailing lists where people interested in helping out others with
such troubles go...

> Learning proper netiquette doesn't usually take long.

It rather seems to me that it is getting harder and harder to fend off
the new generation of people spoiled by knowing nothing but webmail :-(

> I'd prefer to say something like:
> 
> You did not follow the netiquette in your message to this list. Pay
> special attention to the first paragraph of
> http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/mailinglists.html
> and do not reply before you have understood which rules you have
> trespassed. Read up on the archives to learn proper netiquette.
> 
> or
> 
> You have not sent your message to the appropriate list. Read
> http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/mailinglists.html
> thoroughly and send your message to the proper list.

I wish I (still) had your patience, but I must say, I don't.

I spend a lot of time on FFmpeg, and I do help out people, and I do
react timely to patches and bugs in my code.  I do it for fun, but I do
not get paid a cent to do it.

Thus when I help somebody out or fix a bug (that often does not even
affect me directly), I'm effectively doing them a favor.  All I want in
return is for people not to take undue demands on my time by offtopic
postings and to play by the rules of this mailing list / netiquette.
I consider it disrespectful and rude not to do this.

This is my personal opinion, but I would wager that it is shared by many
others around here.

That said, I have no delusions about the effectiveness of these rants.
Constantly telling people off will only get me/us frustrated while
achieving next to nothing (apart from letting off some steam).  We need
to find a technical solution and/or become much better at getting the
information conveyed to the intended recipients.

Diego