[ale] Recent RTFM'ing and Questions and Answers

[Stephen J. Pellicer]

My vote is for people to ask any darn question they want on the list.
Questions will double, triple, and more up on the list and there will
probably be a dull roar of some questions that get asked over and over
again. If that is the case, the Linux community should do something about
it.
I'm tired of the answer that the person's solution exists somewhere on the
Internet. Of course it does. People join user groups to interact with other
people who use these systems because people parse questions better than
google. RTFM is not a good response for a lot of Linux questions. Half the
time you need to know the answer to your question to know what F'ing Manual
To Read.
The recent samba question is a good example. Asking how to access a windows
share is a completely valid question even without any other details. If you
don't know how to access windows shares in Linux, how the heck do you go
about finding the answer? Go to linuxdocs and search for samba? How did you
know that samba is one of the subsystems in a Linux distribution to access
windows shares? Should I tell the list what I tried already? What if that's
nine pages of a horrendous night of trying things at random and searching
all over the Internet for the answer? It turns out the answer to this
particular problem was the mount point didn't exist when attempting to mount
the smb share. I challenge anyone to walk me through the steps on how I
should have RTFM'ed to find that answer.
I think the ale list is not moderated with good reason. People need to feel
welcome to ask questions about any old thing and let newbies and veterans
alike talk it over. Newbie is a relative term, too. Linux benefits from one
of the best help systems in the technology sector: Linux People.
To me, ALE is the best F'ing Manual there is.

Done with with my 2AM rant,
Stephen
PS: Glad you got your smb problem fixed Arafat and props out to Michael
Golden for helping you out.


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