Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Nick said

<<I have myself experienced 'higher' education in this country (as a mature
student), and it is certainly not easy. Resources for Computer Science
departments are generally poor. I can only concur with this post, and
others, that students should not be shunned wholesale from this newsgroup.
Should we not be aiming to encourage students of the Ada language, and
trying to make them feel good about both the language, and the Ada
community?

It would be a good idea to try to ensure that a flyer giving a few 'ground
rules' to all new posters to this newsgroup be made available, perhaps by
means of a regular automated posting. I'm a great believer in the concept
of consensus: if students do not abuse the newsgroup, they needn't pose a
problem or a threat. They are the Ada programmers of the future.>>


I don't think anyone suggested that students should be "shunned wholesale"
(unless you take mrbunny's suggestion to form a separate newsgroup as
being along these lines -- but as I said earlier, I don
't really favor a separate newsgroup).

What I do favor is the idea that students should make some effort to look
at standard useful stuff starting at www.adahome.com before firing off
questions that they should be able to at least attempt answering themselves
(and sometimes this attempt can be a very good way of learning, even if it
is unsuccessful). Actually your suggestion for a flyer for all new posters
is attractive, really all it needs to do is to point to www.adahome.com.
A number of newsgroups do this, but I had the impression that to achieve
this, a newsgroup must be moderated, and that seems a bad idea for CLA.
I don't like the idea of restricting anyone from posting ... But if I am
wrong on this, and we can set this up without introducing a moderator
that would be valuable.