Peter Onion Peter.Onion@btinternet.com wrote:
I do hope that the wrecklessness with which people are treating other peoples machines on the IRC channel at the moment doesn't result in the loss of anyones important data.
As far as I'm concerned getting a less than expert user to edit /etc/fstab via instructions on IRC is asking for trouble.
On the one hand, you have a point: everyone, please be careful what commands you run on your system, especially as root. You can try man command and info command first, or even command --help, to find out what it's about to try to do (although sometimes they can need you to look jargon up in a guidebook). There are strange people giving advice on IRC, like this strange bod: * slef - giving bad advice on IRC since 1996
On the other hand, Peter puts the complaint in very abrupt terms and continued in later posts with pretty offensive teenager and braincell comments directed at ALUG's bearded guru and others. The replies probably didn't help matters and it looks like all turned out OK in this case anyway. Please try to give constructive criticism that tells what to do for the best, rather than just complaining. Try "How to deliver a report without getting lynched" at http://www.asktog.com/columns/047HowToWriteAReport.html for tips.
(Yes, it's far easier to see this when one's not involved.)
Thanks and best wishes,