It's not... or at least shouldn't be a crime to need help. With CHIRP or Linux or anything else. Getting guidance is how users support each other. Sorry the OP was offended but that's the nature of mailing lists. Users support each other. Email is an often forgotten jewel for easy, non-realtime, communication across the globe. If you don't need a "right now" answer its far better than some other technological evolutions that have come since. Good electronic communication skills and decent email tools make for a very competent communications platform. Further, somebody can search these archives and find conv. threads to help them solve problems in the future. Devs and users alike so yeah, mailing lists are supposed to be messy places. It's what has moved CHIRP and Linux forward. Dev's read the digests (maybe you should get the digest instead of actual posts) and this helps shape their development plans (ie when it's time to move the whole platform to Python (whatever the next point release is).