[ale] Insolence of those asking for FREE help on public lists

[Fletch]

>>>>> "John" == John Mills <jmills at tga.com> writes:

    John> [whine about newbieQ's elided]

    John> Thanks for sharing that. Feel better now?

    John> Answering those questions is always _voluntary_, or are you
    John> upset that folks _do_ answer so beginners can become
    John> experienced users. Go back to your paying customers.


        I don't think newbie questions per se are the problem.  I
don't think questions from rude newbies are the problem.  The problem
as I see it is that there seem to be an increasing amount of questions
from newbies that would be solved by one simple thing:


        RTFM.


        There've been a whole lot of very simple questions coming
across the list recently that could have been solved by simply taking
the five minutes necessary to do a quick bit of research.  UNIX
(speaking in general here) comes with gobs of documentation; most open 
source software comes with docmentation; google, altavista, and deja
provide access to even more (mailing lists, newsgroups, etc etc ad
infinitum).  

        It's there for a reason; use it.

        Yes, there will be newbies who don't know vmlinuz from a can
of Turtle Wax.  Yes, they're occasionally going to ask realy simple
questions.  This is the newbie nature.  But realize that seeing
someone ask how to get their 99G drive recognized for the 7.1e10-th
time is kind of annoying.

        If you do answer the unclued, point out *where* the answer
lies as well.  If more newbies get their nose rubbed in RTFM
(politely, of course :), hopefully they won't be newbies for as long
(and there won't be as many annoyed non-newbies going through their
mail grumbling *RTFM* under their breath at every other message :). 
As the bot on #perl says:


<purl> Teach a man to fish and he may feed himself.  Give a man a fish
       and he'll ask you if you could please cook it for him while
       you're at it.

-- 
Fletch                | "If you find my answers frightening,       __`'/|
fletch at phydeaux.org   |  Vincent, you should cease askin'          \ o.O'
678 443-6239(w)       |  scary questions." -- Jules                =(___)=
                      |                                               U
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