gnu@hoptoad.UUCP (John Gilmore) (03/14/89)
A few people complained that when they ask for something, they get a
flood of requests from others asking for the same thing. They seem
to think that this is a problem. It *is* a small burden on the
individual, but please look at it in the larger (network wide) perspective.
In fact, it is good practice that if you want something, and someone
else posts a request for it, to send email to that person. Consider
the alternatives:
* Post another request for it yourself.
This just wastes network bandwidth. Clearly if the net has the thing you
seek, the person who posted the first request will either have it by now,
or know where it is. Why make everyone else read the query twice? Sending
one message to one person is much cheaper, in people and datacomm time,
than sending one message to thousands of people.
* Forget about getting it, or look elsewhere for it.
This is just counterproductive. It's reasonable to look for something
until you find out that someone else is also looking, then you should quit?
If you ask the net for something, and by the grace of the contributors
and the archive maintainers and the people running the email/news
links and the phone bills paid for by everyone else, you receive it --
*be a little generous*. In return for receiving what you asked for,
handle the few requests that you get for it -- either by sending it to
them, if it's small; or by sending them the information on where to get
it themselves. Note that by "few" I mean maybe a dozen or two. After
all, your original query was read and handled by hundreds or thousands
of people, some of whom ended up able to help you and did so. The
least you can do is to help a couple of dozen. In this way you become one
of the people who makes the net work -- not just a recipient of others' work.
It's pretty easy to automate this if it starts to become a burden.
Save a copy of your response to one of the people who asks you, in a file.
Then for every new request, just email them the file containing the response.
If your message bounces, you could try rerouting if you're feeling particularly
generous, else just give up reaching that person -- there's no need to bend
over backwards, just be courteous and helpful, like the people who sent
you the thing in the first place.
--
John Gilmore {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,amdahl}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com
"Use the Source, Luke...."
Copyright 1989 John Gilmore; you may redistribute only if your recipients may.
[Hm.... I agree with the sentiments, but I don't think
that comp.archives is a proper place to discuss this.
If you want to further discuss it, please do so on
comp.sources.d, to which this is cross-posted and to
which followups are directed.
Note also that this message does not really apply to
the original poster. Consider: he asks me a question.
I tell him how to query the server to get some info.
He does so but gets a flood of requests for the info.
All those people who bothered him could have,
instead, just followed the instructions. tww]