asterisk users - Feb 2005 - Suggestion for noise reduction on Asterisk-U sers

>	This wiki should cover most of the basic stuff that gets asked over
and 
>over again just to help reduce the amount of repetition that most of you 
>have probably noticed takes place here.
Problem is, Wikis in general suck and voip-info.org in particular is quite
useless except as a random clicky-clicky exercise. You ever use the search
on voip-info.org? It's almost like someone goofed setting it up and the
search results are ordered least relevant first. 

News flash: The reason the newbie questions appear on the list in the first
place is because it's too hard to find
it on the web. Of course, Google is far better, and Mr. Critchfield takes
great pains to tell us so (and he's right) so there is the argument that if
you can't use Google properly you are wholly unqualified to run Asterisk.
Unfortunately, that type of elitism is exactly what marginalizes open source
/ Linux / RMS type of endeavors. 

Noob questions may seem like the death by a thousand cuts, but the
alternative is that there *are* no noobs and that means eventually that
"Netcraft Confirms Asterisk is Dying*" jokes will start flying.

*yeah, yeah, I know. I was trying to make a point.

Colin Anderson wrote:
> Problem is, Wikis in general suck and voip-info.org in particular is quite
> useless except as a random clicky-clicky exercise. You ever use the search
> on voip-info.org? It's almost like someone goofed setting it up and the
> search results are ordered least relevant first. 
> 
> News flash: The reason the newbie questions appear on the list in the first
> place is because it's too hard to find
> it on the web. Of course, Google is far better, and Mr. Critchfield takes
> great pains to tell us so (and he's right) so there is the argument
that if
> you can't use Google properly you are wholly unqualified to run
Asterisk.
> Unfortunately, that type of elitism is exactly what marginalizes open
source
> / Linux / RMS type of endeavors. 
> 
> Noob questions may seem like the death by a thousand cuts, but the
> alternative is that there *are* no noobs and that means eventually that
> "Netcraft Confirms Asterisk is Dying*" jokes will start flying.
> 
> *yeah, yeah, I know. I was trying to make a point. 
Colin,

	I know the search sucks.  Lets point them to google site:voip-info.org 
or site:lists.digium.com then.  We do a lot of that once they get on the 
list.  Why not before?

--
Kristian Kielhofner

>Lets point them to google site:voip-info.org 
>or site:lists.digium.com then.  We do a lot of that once they get on the 
>list.  Why not before?
OK, Ollie J if you are listening maybe you might consider appending those
links to your monthly or weekly list etiquitte reminders. Post them daily,
even. Seems to me that posting 1 daily reminder with links on the top 20
problems is better than 20 posts with those top 20 questions by newbies. At
worst, it's 1 extra email and at best you may save those 20 posts. Something
like:

MOST COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
---------------------------------------------------

1.How to light up the line indicator on your Snom:

http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-2
3,GGLD:en&q=snom+190+hint+site%3Alists%2Edigium%2Ecom

2. Fax modems and Asterisk:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-23%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=fa
x+modems+site%3Alists.digium.com&meta
3. How come Asterisk doesn't behave like my Meridian with "inbound
lines?"

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-23%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=ke
y+system+site%3Alists.digium.com&meta
4. How do I record calls?

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-23%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=za
pbarge+monitor+calls+site%3Alists.digium.com&meta
FWIW, I find sometimes that meta-discussions like this and things like top
posting, distro advocacy etc take as much bandwidth as noob questions.