FW: [texhax] Bilbliography problem

[W.J. Metzger]

>
> I seriously think there some confusion here: it can hardly be said the Robin
> got angry or even insulted Zak, the original poster.  To my knowledge, the
> first of Robins postings is as follows (I've only removed previous posting):
>
> *****
> as i said in reply to this question on comp.text.tex, it's not a good
> idea to persist with latex 209 compatibility mode.  make your document
> a latex2e one, if at all possible
>
> it's fairly obvious you've got something completely broken up there,
> yet you tell us *nothing* about it other than "it doesn't work".
>
> produce a minimal example, and there's a good chance someone will
> help.
>
> as i said before:
>
> http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=minxampl
> *****
>
> That's it!  Not at lot of name calling, nor bile, nor choleric, not even
> much sarcasm as I can see.  Of course, it may have be that Uwe's crystal
> ball allows him to read people's minds and he sensed Robin's irritation, but
> then maybe he could have just left it up to Robin's sixth sense to receive
> the reprimand.  Indeed, I do believe it is still true that Uwe himself did
> not offer any real solution or help to the original poster and merely used
> the thread as a vehicle to have a go at Robin in public.
>
> Nuff said, anyway I vote for Robin!
>
> Cheers,  Phil
>
 
I agree with Phil.
 
Much has been said about Robin's replies.
I agree that they are sometimes rather caustic, but I find them seldom
impolite, at least no more so than the question.  Uwe, on the other hand,
has been quite rude in his comments on Robin.  It gives the impression
that there is some private animosity.
 
I would suggest that it is basically impolite to send a question without
first doing the basic work of trying to find the answer yourself. That
includes looking at the FAQ and basic documentation. When one asks
impolitely, one should not be surprised by a less than polite answer.
 
Someone compared such questioners to 3-year olds. How I answer a 3-year
old depends on whether he is mine or someone else's. If someone else's, I
tend to say "Ask your mother." However, I expect people on this list to
be older, and wiser.   Coming back to Robin, I have the impression that he
is most caustic with people from UK and US addresses and much less so with
those from third-world lands writing in barely decipherable English.
 
So, I too hope that Robin's retirement from the list is only temporary.
 
Cheers, Wes
 
--
Dr. W. J. Metzger            Experimental High Energy Physics Group
tel. +31-24-3653127          Faculty of Science         (***)
     +31-24-3652099 (secr.)  Radboud University Nijmegen (**)
fax. +31-24-3652191          Toernooiveld 1
                             6525 ED  Nijmegen,  The Netherlands
e-mail:  wes at hef.ru.nl       or   Wesley.Metzger at cern.ch
http://home.cern.ch/metzger/ or   http://www.hef.ru.nl/~wes
  (**)  On 1 Sept. 2004 the University of Nijmegen changed its name
 (***)  The Faculty, not to be outdone, changed its name too.