RE: comp.lang.ada Digest, Vol 29, Issue 16

RE: comp.lang.ada Digest, Vol 29, Issue 16

[Carroll, Andrew]

------------------------------
From: Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing, again

>The reason why it is a FAQ is because we've been discussing this
>licensing issue to death for a couple of weeks now.  

I don't care WHY the wiki is the FAQ; you missed the point entirely on
that one.

Ludovic, I thought you were rude when you wrote, "Read that page. I
really mean it. Have you read that page? Really?"

All I did was ask a question. Like I said before, you could have just
answered the question or wrote, "Read the FAQ on wiki".  You provided
the link, I read it but that does not mean I have to put up with your
condescending tone/attitude nor do I have to let you vent your "mailing
list stress" on me.  Go take it out on your dog!  I DO NOT owe you an
apology.  

>Fine: I was nice enough not to blame you for
>missing the recent discussion

I'm surprised Markus didn't write that line.  I don't owe him an apology
either.


Andrew

Re: comp.lang.ada Digest, Vol 29, Issue 16

[M E Leypold]

"Carroll, Andrew" <andrew.carroll@okstate.edu> writes:
> 
> >Fine: I was nice enough not to blame you for
> >missing the recent discussion
> 
> I'm surprised Markus didn't write that line.  I don't owe him an apology
> either.

No, you don't. But for a slightly different reason than you might
think. 

First, I myself don't take very kindly to being lectured on usenet, so
I probably should refrain from telling other people how usenet works
or how they should behave differently.

Second, I sometimes do it anyway, but this has to be seen as an
experiment. I've quite often found a type of person that seems to
behave as if the rest of usenet is just their service personnel, not
volunteers or peers. They often seem not to realize how much they put
of the very people they are asking for help. I haven't found out yet,
why that is so. So sometimes I try to make them understand by
answering their misguided diatribes / flames. I always thought, there
must be _some_ way to get the message through to them (like: That they
are welcome, but that it might be helpful to sure some amount of
effort to come from themselves [*]). Unfortunately I haven't succeed
so far to crack the code of their communications.

Finally, as I said, I'm sorry, if that is a face saving thing for you,
to have to react like this. I probably shouldn't have mixed good
advice (like "really do read that text, it's good") with "educating"
you (which sou probably resent). Note that saying "I'm sorry" on my
part doesn't cost me much. It's a rather abstract thing more on the
level of realizing that something didn't work and the (tiny) effort to
try was wasted after all.

Regards -- Markus


[*] Short and true story on "Showing some amount of effort":

    Long ago I've been studying as an exchange student at Imperial
    College for some 6 months. For us 3 exchange students the
    laboratory work there was the most important things, since the
    labs were much better organised and generally more instructive
    than at home. 

    The supervisors were real college teachers (not PHD students as at
    home). One of the super visors was Lady T, well known for her
    achievements in her subject and a number of in depth text
    books. 

    One day we heard her "interviewing" with another group of
    students. She absolutely trashed them and partly listening in in
    that conversation (which happened in the same lab room so there
    was was no way to avoid it altogether), we got the impression
    that the problem was not that they didn't know certain things or
    that they had asked stupid questions: The problem was that they
    just hadn't tried to find out for themselves and thus were not
    even able to ask the questions the right way.

    So when our group began to work at the experiment supervised by
    Lady T, and questions started to crop up, we first skimmed the
    relevant text book of Lady T on that subject, convinced ourselves
    that the solution wasn't there in plain sight and then set out to
    formulate our questions in the terminology of the text book and
    referring to the information in the book as baseline.

    We didn't get trashed and we learned a lot from Lady T in the next
    months.

    I often have the impression that the usenet works a bit like Lady
    T, so the lesson we learned there (first show some effort
    yourself, establish some baseline in knowledge and terminology)
    was really useful.

    Unfortunately I do not seem to be able to convey that lesson
    either to a certain class of usenet posters (when I try) nor to a
    larger part of my own students (when I was teaching at
    university). There is always a certain percentage that cannot be
    bothered to use a library or to at least use Google but insists on
    getting help or answers anyway (taking away the time of helpers
    that could have been spent better).

    It's a pity :-).

    THE END.

On how to ask questions

[Björn Persson]

M E Leypold wrote:
> I've quite often found a type of person that seems to
> behave as if the rest of usenet is just their service personnel, not
> volunteers or peers. They often seem not to realize how much they put
> of the very people they are asking for help. I haven't found out yet,
> why that is so. So sometimes I try to make them understand by
> answering their misguided diatribes / flames.

Markus, just in case you don't know about it, here's Eric Raymond's 
attempt to give those people a clue:
http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

The section "Before You Ask" says essentially the same as you said: 
"Show that you have tried to solve the problem yourself." The sections 
"How To Interpret Answers" and "On Not Reacting Like A Loser" are also 
quite relevant to the current case.

(The problem with that document is of course that those people who 
really need it are unlikely to find it and read it.)

-- 
Bj�rn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu