Re: dumb questions

[Testerman Family]

Please keep asking the "dumb" or "obvious" questions. I teach high 
school  and it is the student with the courage to ask the "dumb" 
question who is often asking the question everyone needs to hear the 
answer to, or is giving me feedback on whether or not I have explained 
myself well-enough. Not a perfect analogy to this list, but I learn 
from even those questions that are simple to me. I also remember how 
little I knew about macs and how much I blundered around on my old 
Performa 636 (trying to figure out what is this thing called the 
internet! What did it look like? Browser? How did you get there?)

I like this list for the nuts-and-bolts kinds of questions it 
generates. People should not reply to a post if they have no patience. 
Maybe my tolerance for explaining the same thing over and over again is 
greater because I work with teenagers ;-) but I would hope we could 
maintain a certain level of civility and helpfulness as Dale describes 
below in his post. Telling the "truth" is never an excuse for being 
discourteous.

Carl
iMac 17" 800MHz, iMac DV, iMac rev. B, Performa 636, Mac+
On Wednesday, May 28, 2003, at 12:31  PM, iMac List wrote:

i belong to a volkswagen camping list and the old what kind of tires
should i buy comes up over and over and over and folks just very calmly
share their expertise due to their desire to HELP those in need of
help.
a "dumb" question has NEVER been asked on that list, from how much air
should i put in my tires to when should i shift from first to second to
third to fourth.   And on and on and on.  Thank goodness because if new
folks with lots of simple questions quit joining the list, the list
(and "movement") will surely die. at any rate, there is a genuine sense
of compassion rather than competiveness on the vw list.

I was taught many years ago that
the only dumb question is the one you don't ask.
personally i think its vital to work through these kinds of "off topic"
issus (like whether people are accused of being dumb if their questions
fail to meet someone's criteria of not-dumb) on a list like this
because, ultimately, they are not off-topic at all.  they speak
directly to whether the list is able to viably serve the needs of the
imac folks who currently rely on it for good, solid information.


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