[MPlayer-users] Attitude Anyone?

[jasonrc at gomdoli.com]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Darren White wrote:
> Maybe a 'newbie' forum should be created with an expert who doesn't mind
> answering "dumb" questions? This may cut down on churn in your
> development forum.

I suggested this too (and I'm guessing others have as well) and was shot
down. I agree with you though.

> The purpose of a community support mailing list SHOULD be to stimulate
> HEALTHY dialog between the "haves" and the "have nots". Be considerate
> of your replies. I'm sure there is something that you don't know and
> would like to get response w/o feeling insulted.

Unfortunately, for the newbie, a healthy dialog is often not an option
because of intolerance for beginner questions on this list. Its a shame
really.

> There is tons of info out there about mplayer and linux and searching
> for it sometimes is not as easy as just asking the question. This is how
> people learn
> 
> I do a lot of reading before I ask a question so don't think I am not
> researching before I ask. My mplayer works fine for a newbie. I am proud
> of myself for installing a linux system with little or no support. I am
> just trying to make improvements.

Here is my issue, you may do all the reading, and install the required
components, but as a newbie, you might botch one of the jobs and not
even know it. When I first tried mencoder, I read the docs, realized I
needed lame and such, installed it via a deb, yet, when I did 3 pass
encoding, the sound wasn't being encoded. In the end, it turned out the
deb I was using was broken. Now this surely isn't the fault of mplayer,
however, the users here are the ones best suited to trouble shoot this
type of problem. Once (and I thank whomever it was who told me this) I
new that lame was the problem, I was able to purge the deb and install
one that worked. 

Newbies are going to botch things up. Any newbie knows this. I wish that
there was a better way to help those newbies so that they too can enjoy
mplayer

> I do understand that some questions can be annoying. There should be a
> better system to handle this problem. Bashing people is not a solution
> because it maybe defeating the system's intended purpose!
> 
> Hey, you guys are a great resource and I hope I have not offended
> anyone, If I have, I apologize in advance.

I agree, the developers have done a stand up job of writing both mplayer
and its documentation. It saddens me though, to see the number of people
who apologize just for speaking up or asking a question. People,
especially newbies, are wary to even ask a question here. On other
lists, I have seen xine recommended over mplayer for the soul reason
that this list is a hostile place for newbies. If the developers don't
mind this, then by no means change, but I think that more users help a
project grow in terms of functions and acceptability.

jason