ray at comarre
Mar 24, 2003, 10:36 AM
Post #1 of 6
(902 views)
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how best to answer questions (was: RE: ringbuf1.nuv)
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At 11:51 AM 3/24/2003 -0500, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
[...]
>I realize we all have different personal threshholds regarding how 'basic' a
>question can be before we fire off a standard 'RTFM' response, but I
>personally wouldn't want anyone to give up on Myth or Linux in general
>because they felt the community was not supportive towards newbies. I
>thought the whole point of having a separate 'mythtv-users' list was to
>provide a forum that was more tolerant of basic setup questions.
You raise a good basic question here, Joe, but I think you also attack a
straw man.
Providing someone with a link to a specific, applicable section of a HowTo,
as Robert did, is not "a standard 'RTFM' response". When I first arrived
here, I posted a question that got a similar response (I don't recall from
whom, though Robert is surely a likely candidate), and it was to the point
and helpful. Since the information was located in an unlikely place in the
HowTo, directing me to it gave me the opportunity to suggest that it be
relocated (or referenced) in the place I *had* checked, the section that
appeared from its name to be the relevant one (instead of its actual
location in a "Miscellaneous Problems" appendix, or something like that).
Referencing existing sections of a HowTo saves the writer time, encourages
use of the HowTo by everyone here, and offers a way to promote steady
improvement of the HowTo.
For a beginner to get a direct answer here to a question that is answered
in the HowTo, someone who knows the answer needs to be willing to take the
time to compose a reply with the details, ideally a reply that is as
accurate and clear as the HowTo itself. You did offer a reply in this case,
but only in response to an earlier reply you did not care for. Perhaps this
was just timing ... you did not see the original message until after Robert
had posted his reply. Or perhaps you, like me and everyone else here, saw
the message and decided to let someone else take care of it, posting only
when you decided you didn't like the answer the "someone else " actually
gave. In either case, I'd urge you to support your view by actually writing
the sorts of reply you would like to see, so that people who prefer not to
write one-by-one answers to recurring questions can refrain from replying
but draw on these list answers to improve the HowTo and other documentation
(or, in the case at hand, fix what I too see as a design flaw).
To my eye, this list is extremely "tolerant" of "basic setup questions". No
one castigated the user for posting his question ... most of us ignored it,
and you and Robert answered it in different fashions. A considerably
touchier example is Jay's thread from yesterday, where he got responses he
found unhelpful, and responded insultingly (both to the person who had
posted the brief response -AND- to the person who had taken the time to
post a more extensive, in-line set of comments and responses to his
original post).
Even here, I felt that the original poster got about what he deserved ...
being rude to people from whom you seek free tech support for free software
just isn't smart, even if you do not understand a particular reply. I even
started to write a more extensive reply explaining to Jay what he was
missing, but as the thread continued while I was writing, he got annoying
enough that I discarded the reply unposted. I notice that no one else
stepped in to help him out either, perhaps indicating the limits on what we
as a group (including you, presumably, since you didn't step in either)
will tolerate from beginners asking questions.
In closing ... as MythTV moves from an app suited only for tinkerers to one
ready for a mass audience, a lot of things have to improve. Documentation
is one of them. That it is not currently good enough to handle all
questions by beginners (even beginners to Unix/Linux) is unfortunate but
not surprising ... free development takes you only so far, and up to now
I'd say both the app and its docs have developed pretty well. And, just to
be very clear, I think Robert is quite right to reference his HowTo when
answering questrions, leaving it to others to write immediate replies if we
are willing to make the effort (since he's already *made* his effort by
writing and maintaining the HowTo in the first place).
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