It seems to me we have a tempest in a teapot here. The best
suggestion out of this group was simply to ignore the postings that show
the person has done no research and is just desperately casting about for
a project. As for the .tutorial. idea, it is essentially creating a ghetto
for students. While I will certainly read any request for information and
perhaps respond to it (if it's my field), I doubt that I could go for an
entire newsgroup of questions. And I think most of us are the same.
The whole problem seems to stem from how much time it takes to
glance at a posting. I find that with a cursory glance, I can get the gist
of an article and determine whether to read/delete in about ten seconds.
So even if there are 20 postings for information, that's only a little
more than three minutes. I don't know how busy everyone else is, but I can
spare a few minutes each day in the hopes that some child is taking an
interest in science.
Let's not go marginalizing their questions because they are young.
No-one is forcing anyone to reply. At the worst, you've got an extra line
on the newsreader.
--
dave
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David Smillie Ancora imparo
Carleton University
If at first you don't succeed
..you've failed.
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