Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 22:20:42 -0500 From: Scott <scottro@nyc.rr.com> To: "Robert C. Blaylock" <robertb@sitespecific.net>, "Annelise Anderson" <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu>, "TheUaRT" <theuart@hotmail.com> Cc: <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: FreeBSD Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020228221053.00c5eec8@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> In-Reply-To: <F2F3D7B1F500EE4997CA682E5174A200028EB1@ssimsg01.sitespecif ic.net>
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At 19:06 2002/02/28 -0800, Robert C. Blaylock wrote: >I agree with TheUart. I have just sat back and watched for the last few >months and it seems like there are a lot of people that dont want to be >bothered with "simple" questions while they are chating with there friends >in IRC. If people dont want to be bothered by simple questions then why >dont they just use a private room? For myself I prefer to RTFM... but if >people are asking questions isnt that a good thing? I think that as anything becomes more popular, it gains an influx of neophyte's---telling them to buy Ms. Anderson's book is probably a bit harsh. Sometimes, it isn't laziness--it's simple ignorance (not meant in a derogatory way) People newer to computers, (this could go for MS systems as well) tend to simply ask for help. A perfect example is a relatively new Linux distribution, Gentoo Linux. At first, questions on the mailing list were almost entirely from people who were obviously somewhat experienced--as the distro has gained in popularity, one now sees frequent questions that are easily found in the faq or elsewhere on their website. It's not laziness on their part--one could say it's stupidity, but that's quite harsh. We all learn one step at a time, and sometimes, the neophyte doesn't realize what is obvious to someone who has played with computers awhile--that the answer is quite possibly relatively easy to find. Actually, if they've read Ms. Anderson's book, she warns that asking on IRC can lead to being insulted. (She phrases it a little more eloquently, IIRC). :) However, I certainly understand Mr. Arrogant's :) point of view. After spending a good deal of time writing a faq for a linux list that is aimed towards newbies, and seeing a post of "How do I..." I sometimes simply answer When you joined this list, you received a welcome message. It had a link to a faq, where your question is answered. In case you forgot to save the welcome message, the faq is at <and the link> Additionally, after 30 minutes of trying to teach my wife how to retrieve her voice messages from her cell phone, I learned that there are times when telling someone, even in a nice way (honest, I was nice) to RTFM can be a Very Bad Thing (TM) Scott To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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