Hi,

for all who are wondering about awnsers on this list please get 
'How To Ask Questions The Smart Way' by Eric S. Raymond (utfi).

Here are some passages:

[...]

Despite this, hackers have a reputation for meeting simple questions
with what looks like hostility or arrogance. 
It sometimes looks like we're reflexively rude to newbies
and the ignorant. But this isn't really true.

What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling
to think or do their own homework before asking questions. 
People like that are time sinks - they take without giving back, they waste
time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another
person more worthy of an answer. 

We call people like this "losers" (and for historical reasons we sometimes spell it 
"lusers").

We're (largely) volunteers. We take time out of busy lives to answer questions, 
and at times we're overwhelmed with them. 
So we filter ruthlessly. In particular, we throw away questions from people
who appear to be losers in order to spend our question-answering time 
more efficiently, on winners.

If you decide to come to us for help, you don't want to be one of the losers. 
You don't want to seem like one, either. 
The best way to get a rapid and responsive answer is to ask it like a winner - 
to ask it like a person with smarts, confidence,
and clues who just happens to need help on one particular problem.

[...]

On Not Reacting Like A Loser

Odds are you'll screw up a few times on hacker community forums - in ways
detailed in this article, or similar. And you'll be told exactly
how you screwed up, possibly with colourful asides. In public.

When this happens, the worst thing you can do is 
##################################################

whine about the experience, 
claim to have been verbally assaulted, 
demand apologies, 
scream, 
hold your breath, 
threaten lawsuits, 
complain to people's employers, 
leave the toilet seat up, etc. 

Instead, here's what you do:

Get over it. It's normal. In fact, it's healthy and appropriate.
################################################################


Remember: When that hacker tells you that you've screwed up, 
and (no matter how gruffly) tells you not to do it again, he's acting out
of concern for (1) you and (2) his community.
It would be much easier for him to ignore you and filter you out of his life.
If you can't manage to be grateful, at least have a little dignity, don't whine,
and don't expect to be treated like a fragile doll just because you're a 
newcomer with a theatrically hypersensitive soul and delusions of entitlement.

[...]

Better lern from your masters.

Oliver
-- 
... don't touch the bang-bang fruit

Reply via email to