On Mon, 2004-08-16 at 20:58, alan wrote: > On Mon, 16 Aug 2004, Michael E. Webster wrote: > > <snip for brevity> > > Seriously, I'd like to know. Is it easier to send an email asking for > > an answer than it is to find the answer yourself? Sure it is. Will you > > remember what you did to fix the problem two months from now? Probably > > not. Is it laziness? Most likely. > > Sometimes that is true. Sometimes Google gives you back a bunch of > useless information. Depends on the problem and how you specify the > search term. I have been sometimes sent an email to the group WHILE Googling for just that reason. I might be in a crunch time, when they need the server or service up and running. There may be times when there isn't much lead time and I have to find the info fast. So I post here and Google and Yahoo and Excite. Have I had my head snapped off, yes. I just shrug it off. I ignore threads that I see go off on a tangent. Once someone starts saying Google it, then I quit reading the thread. Why bother, the next hundred messages are going to be about how it would have been easier/simpler/more friendly to have just answered the question. Whatever. Maybe the new user doesn't know about Google. Yet they get told in a demeaning tone that they should Google first. Maybe the user doesn't know the "rules". You can't come to the forum and ask a question unless you Google, read the Encyclopedia Britannica, get your RHCE, solve world hunger, and be one of Brittany Spears husbands. Okay, maybe that last one was stretching it. The point being that sometimes the answer is shorter than the admonishment. We all come here to learn and grow. Yes, some of the newbies, don't know the rules. They top post, they send in HTML, they respond to the digest, they hijack threads, but we treat them like they have been here for years. Maybe I just don't get it. I have been doing this since '85 and I answer the same questions from users over and over. I guess some of us are better teachers. It's like I tell my ex when she complains about telling the kids something 100 times. I tell her that is their job, our job is to teach, so tell them 101. Eventually they get it, but never talk down to them. -- Edward M. Croft Sr. Systems Engineer Open Ratings, Inc. 200 West Street Waltham, MA 02451-1121
