pete said:
dear people
i have been posting for a while now and people have thanked me for my
help, but i have now been told to stay away and that i do more harm than
good, i feel this is unjust to say the least, i thought it was a good
thing
to try and help people and i dont think that i have put anybodys pc at
risk,
as you will see below i have been slated for helping people, please let me
know your feelings on this..
as posted by Malke
"But you *aren't* helping anyone. You don't quote properly and you give
ridiculous answers that at best are useless and at worst could cause
some real damage to the OP. If you were really a "nice guy" you'd
change your ways or find another venue in which to "help" people."
Since you use such a nondescript moniker (just "Pete"), there is no way to
do a good search within the newsgroup to find just your posts. I don't know
if Malke based his response on just one or two of your posts or has been
monitoring you for awhile. If you quote improperly, readers may not be able
to decipher your posts so they become fluff. Remember that you are not
talking to your long-time buddy sitting next to you, so word your posts the
same way that you would write to your teacher or employer. It is already
evident by your post here that you have problems with capitalization and
using periods to delineate your sentences (and commas are NOT the same as
periods!). If you are going to make your writing difficult to read by
rambling without structure, expect others to simply ignore them.
Any "me, too" posts are superfluous since they add nothing to the
discussion. Most of what I saw for your posts (based on your lack of
grammar, capitalization, and your IP address) were one-shot blurbs; i.e.,
you don't follow up in thread. This is more ego stroking than of providing
help. As per your post at
http://snipurl.com/mcto, it looks like you're
just trying to accumulate "points" somewhere rather than to actually help.
Note due to the difficulty in identifying just your posts in a Google Groups
search (since I cannot search by your IP address of 195.217.99.160 in the
headers, and "Pete" is too generic), I cannot get an accurate picture of
your posts. I just look at the first half dozen.
If you need to watch the thread, don't bother adding a fluff post just so
you can search on your moniker later to find the thread. Mark the thread
with the Watch flag and sort by the watch flag so they are at the top of the
header list pane. Then you can see your watched threads very easily. Of
course, that means you will need to use OE or some other *real* newsreader
rather than the webnews-for-dummies interface provided by Microsoft's CDO
(their interface doesn't have anywhere near the rich feature set available
in an NNTP client). You mention in another post of having to use the
webnews-for-dummies interface to circumvent policies at work. If you think
you are hiding by using HTTP instead of NNTP, you are sorely mistaken. They
DO KNOW where you connect and can monitor your traffic. It is, after all,
*their* property and not yours so it is entirely within their right on how
to regulate the use of their resources and to eliminate their employees from
wasting their paid-time on unrelated tasks. They may not say anything
(until your actions become severe) until it is time for your review or to
provide further explanation for your termination. I know of technically
expertised users that thought they weren't being monitored but ended up
getting fired because of their violations of company policy. If you truly
have a need to access newsgroups during the time for which you are getting
paid by your employer then you have a reasonable argument to gain that
access. I'm in software QA and need the help of the community regarding the
tools and technologies involved, so I get newsgroups access at work that
others are denied, and I have no qualms about restrictions regarding to
which newsgroups that I visit since any that are blocked that I need can be
allowed on request. Our company also uses Websense to censor to where their
employees can navigate (ours is a technology company so restricting the web
is not doable) and occasionally I have to contact our IT department to get a
site recategorized (but can't if it is a subdomain to which I need access
because Websense blocks by domains, not subdomains or hosts). Just because
you can get around your company policies doesn't make it a smart thing to
do. It's THEIR property (along with them paying you during that time).
Be aware that while you feel your signature is okay, it is somewhat
flammatory. You are posting in a Microsoft newsgroup yet your proselytize
conversion to Linux. Also, your other replies implicate you as a troll
wanting to inflame. Even if you want to counter, it helps maintain your
credibility if you do it in manner that shows some expertise, not as some
kid screaming back "oh yeah, oh yeah".
Although unlikely, below are some helpful articles that will help you when
posting to the Usenet. You don't need to follow everything noted in these
articles (most posters don't) but it should provide a framework to
understand the community to which you are communicating. You will find the
atmosphere far more informal in many alt.* newsgroups (but even many there
deal with technical issues); otherwise, even when insulting someone, do it
professionally (and that will be affected by your writing skills). While
these are guidelines, you are still allowed your own "style" but don't make
it just to accumulate points or to make it difficult for others to actually
read your posts.
--
How to post:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
http://www.newsreaders.com/guide/netiquette.html
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/emily-postnews/part1/
