alt.os.linux
Has anyone had any experiences with the newsgroup alt.os.linux? I've been posting to it for a couple of weeks now and it's struck me that although some of the most knowledgeable people post there, it suffers from so much arrogance and elitism there that I don't think I'm going to bother with it any more.
I'll take an example to show my point:
I was, until recently, relatively unfamiliar with Usenet etiquette, particularly with regards to top-posting. An easy mistake to make, I have to say. Somebody replies when I offered some advice on printers that nobody should take any stock in advice from a top-poster. I offered my apologies and got trolled yet again by the same moron.
It gets worse. He ended his tirade with the phrase "Thank you for not top-posting" (sarcastically, I assume), when someone else chipped in to my defense, saying that "netsheriffs are worse than top-posters". Cue the troll wars. Everybody came down on the guy like a ton of bricks for criticising based on one single header in his post: X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3028 - yes, he is a Windows user. It pretty soon degenerated into a flurry of name-calling (Windroids anyone?) upon which point I decided to duck out and stay out.
What does everyone think of this behaviour?
"Yes sir! I mean, no sir! I mean, yes to the first part, and no to the second part! Sir!"
"Shut up, you idiot."
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