[AUUG-Talk]: Personal Contributions - AUUG's Value Add

[David J N Begley]

Quoting Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org>:

> On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, David Newall wrote:
>
>> > Hopefully in reverse order of importance..
>> Not particularly.  I'm very self-reliant.  Web has pushed Books   
>> from first to third place.  I thought it was a trick question (ie
>> the answer was web) until I saw the sample answers.
>
> Well, that's an odd definition of "self-reliant", relying upon
> unsubstantiated sources etc.

What is probably implied is that "critical thinking", "varying degrees  
of trust" and "multiple sources of information" are applied to _all_  
sources (including books and journals), depending on the  
problem/question at-hand.

There is certainly nothing wrong with trusting the Web for an answer  
if, for example, the publisher happens to also be the author of the  
software with which you are currently experiencing difficulties;  this  
doesn't doesn't guarantee that the answer is correct, though.

> For my part, I use peer-reviewed sources such as books and mailing lists,
> with the web stuff coming a distant third.

Mailing lists, oh yeah - what was that about unsubstantiated sources?  ;-)