Okay, this is a long post. You have been warned ;-)
On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 11:03:02AM +0530, Vijaya Rama Raju Alluru wrote:
culture. The sooner the newbies learn the better. Everyone on this group was a newbie once remember.....
In my experience, a newbie joins a list to get some problem solved. He is more concerned about the problem than the etiqutte. I agree this is not an excuse. But can we not help him without making him feel sorry for asking a question.
There are many ways of looking at this issue, and indeed this issue has been raised a multitude of times before. Here are some points of view (not necessarily my own):
(1) Newbie friendlyness is ok, but how do the list members feel when 20 different people ask the *same* question which is answered trivially by a simple google search on the list within a short span of time. Most newbies ask without thinking and everyone would agree that perhaps more important than solving their problem is telling them that a simple look around them (google, list archives, faqs) will give them quite a detailed solution to their trouble.
(2) There have been lists where this "no cribs, just answer question or keep mum" policy has been tried out. More often than not, things have gone to the point where, for a trivial problem, newbies treat the list as a technical support system and unleash a barrage of trivial questions. Since, in this model, they never get told to RTFM, they sometimes even go to the extent of abusing posters who eventually ask them to google search.
(3) Another model which has been tried out is that of a separate questions-only list/forum/irc/whatever which caters to these newbies. Works well apart from the fact that sufficient number of members should be willing to dedicate parts of their time and energies to be a part of such setups to really help the newbies. Or else in a bad case trivial problems escalate into heated debates between newbies when such setups lack investments from the non-newbies. All solvable with just a google search or a peek into the archives/faqs etc.
(4) Are we really helping the newbies by spoon-feeding them? In any case, does anyone STOP you from spoonfeeding an answer to a newbie who DOES ask a trivial question? I think not. So if (non-RTFM) answers to trivial questions by newbies do not come about on the MAIN list, how will they come about anywhere else?
Sorry for the long mail and thank you for your patience if you have reached this far. Feedback welcome. The objective of this post is to put forth some viewpionts and ideas that always come up in this discussion.
Discussion welcome. Of course, we are us. And we can choose to do whatever we want...
I am with Trevor on this one. More newbie friendly.
I quote Morpheus here, as I always do: "I can only show you the door Neo. You are the one who has to walk through it."