On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 4:49 AM, Peter Cushing<[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey that's a great way to send someone a link, 3 steps and nice > sarcastic "was that so hard" at the end. I'm definitely going to be > using that site. >
Well, that's the intent of the site. Yes, it's snarky. But I can empathize with the attitude. It asks "Why don't you just look it up?" and makes sense for questions asked out of the blue where the poster has obviously made no effort. It's a bit ruder in the middle of a conversation, though, I think. Email is a medium where the content is transmitted and the context is discarded. It's too easy to offend and too tempting to reply in haste. I spend a lot of time trying to help people out, and I really appreciate it when a poster explains their problem correctly and show they've made some effort to figure it out. There's nothing more disheartening than working to help someone out to be told "they already tried that" or finding the answer in the very first Google search answer, or finding out they failed to explain the _real_ problem that causes their question as a secondary effect. It's disrespectful to the forum and to the people who sincerely make an effort to help. It's why esr wrote "How to Ask Questions The Smart Way" (http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html) and why I wrote "Why I Don't Answer Your Questions" (http://radio.weblogs.com/0117767/stories/2004/05/19/whyIDontAnswerYourQuestions.html) It's too easy to start a flamewar that way. It's nicer if you can assume the other person is just having a bad day. -- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
