From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2008-08-09T00:37:54+09:00
Subject: Re: An introduction, in about 50 lines of Ruby.

Trans wrote:
> Maybe it's time for a list split?
>
> I have noticed that there has been a fairly sharp decline in list
> participation over the last couple of years. In August of 2006 there
> were over 6500 posts, since then we have seen a steady decline to the
> low 3000s. From what I can tell, the main issue is that Ruby experts
> tire of the quantity of nuby posts that they have to weed through.
>
> I know there is the fear that having two lists of "beginner" vs.
> "expert" creates the fear that experts won't help out beginner, but
> that it already the case --as demonstrated by this post. 

Quite frankly I don't know what we were supposed to do to help this guy. 
He may be a beginner but he was just posting his ego. I didn't post for 
the simple reason: "don't feed the troll".

There is certainly a decline in the quality of the beginners post, they 
are sometimes coming down to the subject line being the whole post and 
other bitching about how no one is helping them. I am reminded of Zed's 
comments and something DDH said. "We own you nothing" (to paraphrase). 
Some of the beginners don't make the effort to ask for help, it is 
almost as if they are throwing their cloths in the laundry basket and 
expecting their mom to magically clean and fix them.

Just what was the OPs (programming) problem?