Update: OK folks, lets not get too carried away here. I do want to talk to you still. You don’t need to be afraid to write me. If I feel that your question is better answered on a mailing list, I will tell you so (in a nice way). I understand that there are gray situations where you may not want to write a mailing list and that the mailing lists are not always the best place to get answers. I always try to be very accommodating about this as I value the users of the projects I participate in, the relationships that I’ve established through direct contact, and I also value the direct, honest feedback I might have otherwise never received. This entry was written primarily to be funny! Enjoy it and don’t think about it too much.
Dear XXX,
I appreciate your repeated inquiries which seek to establish a direct support channel with me, the all knowing, Daniel B. Diephouse.
I would like to kindly redirect you to this wonderful thing known as the mailing list. It is a rather new invention (being invented somewhere between the telegraph and today) and has supplied countless users with answers to their questions. By posting your question to the mailing list, you and the community at large will gain many benefits:
- While I will admit I am incredibly smart (and handsome), it seems I do forget things every now and then. Rest assured, there are many people around who can point out the flaws in my otherwise inconsistent logic and point out additional things I might have missed.
- It seems that like myself, there are many people who hang out on the interwebs, have no life, and an infinite amount of spare time. Much to my chagrin, it seems these people have even more infinite time than I and get to your question faster. It makes me feel like just a lowly set of integers in a world of real numbers.
- Recently my friends Larry and Sergey started archiving things for me. Since then, I’ve tended to answer questions more in depth because I can just point people to the previous answers when a repeat question comes up.
- I was trying to keep it from you, but I must confess that in between our conversations I talk to other people as well. And I often answer questions with them too. We share very similar intimate details - exceptions, architecture thoughts, and requirements. Don’t think of it as cheating - think of it is as an open relationship. Why hoard good things to oneself? Personally, I’m a fan of sharing.
I’m sure though that this is not quite reason enough for you as you work for big company X which entitles you to many special concerns and privileges. Working at said company you are surely worried about people knowing you are using an open source project. For example, we wouldn’t want people knowing the stock exchange ran on Linux - it might compromise security. Luckily, there are ways to anonymize yourself today - I think they’re even free. I suggest that you investigate these.
Unless you think I am just talking to you because you work for company X, be sure that it is also partly because you hold a lot of sway in your company. I know your manager really likes you - I heard he gave you a gold star last week! So I have complete faith that X privilege/money will be exchanged somewhere down the line for the upfront personalized support down the line. In the mean time, I really would suggest that you check out the mailing lists while we sort out the details.
Yours truly,
Dan
This is an automated message; please do not reply to this e-mail.
(BTW, If you think this was about you - it probably wasn’t. This is written for 100s of people over the last few years. And if it does describe you, don’t take it personally!)
