On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 05:58:16PM -0500, Derek Martin wrote: > On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 09:51:13AM -0500, Dale A. Raby wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 08:35:25AM -0600, Paul E Condon wrote: > > > I really don't need to be told RTFM. I am 80 yrs old. > > > I forget things. > > [I think people should take note: this comment clearly suggests that > Paul, like many people, has had negative experiences asking relatively > simple questions on mailing lists like this one, if not this very one.] > > > I am 56 and also forget things... that's maybe what manuals are for? ;) > > I normally just start Googling and usually find an answer somewhere. > > List requests work though. > > The problem with the RTFM answer is that TFM is (in many cases, and > certainly in the mutt or emacs cases) rather long, and if you don't > already know exactly what you're looking for, finding that one thing > you need can take hours. Searching (your manual or google) is only as > good as your ability to guess the right keywords, and if you didn't > find it that means actually reading large sections of manual. When > what you have is basically a 2-second question, reading the manual is > a waste of time. > > Asking on a mailing list, where someone (or many someones) almost > certainly knows the answer without looking it up, AND will reply to > you usually in less than 5 minutes, while you go make yourself a nice > cup of tea, is a much more productive and less frustrating way to > solve the problem, and should be encouraged, not discouraged. > Otherwise why are we here? > > For answers that take some effort, replying with RTFM is fine, if > you're going to suggest where in TFM to look. If you can't be > bothered to do at least that, then you should probably find some other > way to spend your time--your answer isn't worth the time it took you > to send it. If the answer can definitively be given by a couple of > lines of text or less, then replying with RTFM is just making noise on > the list that benefits ABSOLUTELY NO ONE. >
At the risk of raising everyones ire, there are times, especially with a really basic question and no indication of any effort on the poster's part, reply by asking what research has been done, what has been tried, and what were the error messages. Sometimes I will supply the url about asking smart questions (don't have it at hand). I'm on a list that has one of these people. He asks one basic question after another, usually of the form "how do I ..." The thing that gets me is that many people on the list trip over each other to hold this guy's hand. No one suggests that he put out *some* effort to find answers. I'm about to, which will bring down the wrath of the posters, but that's the way it goes. -- Bob Holtzman If you think you're getting free lunch, check the price of the beer. Key ID: 8D549279
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