The Coq mailing list

[Alexandre Pilkiewicz <alexandre.pilkiewicz AT polytechnique.org>]

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 3:18 PM, Greg Morrisett 
<greg AT eecs.harvard.edu>
 wrote:
> This isn't a very welcoming attitude if you want to grow the Coq
> community.  Perhaps we should have some ready canned responses that
> point people to resources (e.g., the FAQ, SF, CPDT, the IRC, etc.)
> but in a polite fashion.

Hi Greg,

I'm sorry if I made anyone think I was suggesting we should stop
answering trivial questions. Like anyone else, I have been a beginner
in Coq, and I still often ask pretty trivial things. I've been lucky
enough to be able to ask most of those questions to people in offices
next to mine, but I would never want to denies other the right to ask
them on a mailing list (even if I support the suggestion of Matthias
to create a beginner list, to allow people to ask basic questions
without being impressed by discussion on W-types, and without imposing
a maximum number of questions, and believe that IRC might be better
for that)

That being said, a friendly community doesn't mean a community without
any rules or any ways of protecting itself against trolls. And I think
someone who keeps asking trivial questions, does not read the answers,
does not follow any advices, and keeps accusing the tool of being
badly designed before trying to understand it falls in the "troll"
category.

Cheers,
Alexandre