Frye, Matthew said the following on 3/26/04 1:47 PM:
Mostly, I think it does more harm than good. Too often, we find that the
people who say RTFM don't really even know the answer themselves, or are
just unwilling to help. Maybe they feel possessive, as if it's a kind of
nerd Cosa Nostra. I think someone mentioned the Luddites recently, and I
think it's the same mentality. Either way, I feel it's counter-productive.
It doesn't promote understanding or collaboration, which are the foundations
of the open source movement.
Many people know where I stand on RTFM, so I won't say it.
Still, if you are on this list, it is assumed you have at least
a minimum amount of compentency with the web (after all, you signed
up there). If you haven't heard of Google by now, you must have been
on the moon the last few years. So, I just pointed out that that
the links I gave, which explained it much better than I could have
in a short e-mail message, were the first and fourth hits on a
*single* *word* google search for VERP. It doesn't get much simpler
than that.
Now, that said, there are times when I think RTFM is a good thing
and times when a simple explanation is in order. You have to figure
out when's when and saying that one is never (or hardly ever)
appropriate simplifies things too much. Too much just giving the
answer produces people who always want you to do their homework for
them. Teach a person to fish^H^H^H^Hsearch for themselves and they
will be much better off.
Cheers,
Tanner
--
Tanner Lovelace | Don't move! Or I'll fill ya full of... little
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | yellow bolts of light! - Commander John Crichton
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