In the old days, Rasmus would answer with something like: http://php.net/FAQ.php#4.17
That was back when the whole FAQ could fit in the head of a single person... :-) [Well, a single person as smart as Rasmus, anyway... :-)] This meta-thread about what to do about posters who obviously didn't do their homework is just as endemic to the system as the original problem. "The poor will always be with you" I truly believe that the best solution is to simply point them to the URL they should have found in the first place, maybe politely suggest they try the search engine first next time, and leave it at that. Being abusive is not going to make them want to improve themselves, really. Who gets the good results -- The sports coach who yells and screams at new, untrained players for stupid mistakes, or the one who politely informs them of their error, and sets them on the true path? Now if you got a poster who *CONTINUES* in their wayward behaviour, an off-list explanation of their error is a Good Idea (tm). :-) And, you'll never get the volume of a General list for something as popular as PHP to significantly decrease no matter how you try to hit users over the head with "Do your homework" There have already been more meta-posts about FAQs than FAQs, and that's just silly. [Which is why I'm making another one, of course :-)] Not saying that making it easy to find the right way to search isn't a Good Idea (tm) but extremes like a daily post to tell people that is just "too much" and won't help. Disclaimer: Once upon a time, a long time ago, as a brand-new user, I read the FAQ. A year went by. I asked question # 4.17. Why? Well, when I read the FAQ, I didn't even understand the QUESTION, much less the answer to #4.17. :-) A fellow named Rasmus was kind enough to just reply: http://php.net/FAQ.php#4.17 And you know what? About a year after that, I figured out (Hey, I'm slow, okay?) that this Rasmus guy (and that Zeev guy and that Andi guy) were the actual *DEVELOPERS* of PHP, and I figured they could better spend his (their) time fixing PHP for me, instead of answering questions with: http://php.net/FAQ.php#4.17 So, you know what I did? I started answering for him. Hey, I even answered questions I didn't even understand. No, really. There was this one Oracle question that kept popping up with the same error message, and the answer (not yet in the FAQ at that time) was SetEnv("ORACLE_HOME=/home/oracle"); [And that's not even the correct answer any more, but it was then.] I didn't really know what SetEnv was, and I hadn't actually touched Oracle (well, okay, Oracle 4.1.17 or somesuch when I worked this day job years and years before, and they had this *horrible* command-line ASCII art interface that you couldn't even create a database without answering a zillion questions I didn't understand the question, much less know the answer to...) Anyway, for all practical purposes, I knew nothing about Oracle. [Still don't, for all practical purpose, but I reckon I can get away with "Just like chicken" if I ever need to use it.] There were other questions about CGI and Module (whatever those are) and I just memorized the FAQ answers and posted away. I think I did that pretty solid for, oh, three, maybe four years or so... :-) Next thing you know, I was being hailed as PHP expert (and eventually became one, I guess...). 'Course, I also got abusive emails from (eg) Oracle users after I told them (in response to direct-email followup questions) that I had no idea how to work Oracle and had never even seen it, and they seemed to think I was deliberately lying to them and taunting them, but that's another story... :-) Anyway, my point is this -- Abusive answers don't help, no matter how frustrated you are. If you're that frustrated, let somebody else answer the FAQ, or just let the guy flounder for awhile. They'll either get answered by somebody else, or the poster will get off their duff and start digging. Either way, just hit delete. Just my take as a former (and maybe once again) "regular" You'll have to use my old email addresses to dig out my old posts if you wanna figure out just how "regular" I was, back in the day... [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] And a few more I reckon I've forgotten, but that's okay :-) I think Stas even had this nifty interface on the Zend site for a while tracking post frequency by email. I don't think I ever was more vociferous than Rasmus, but it was close sometimes :-) -- Like Music? http://l-i-e.com/artists.htm -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
