On "RTFM"
Of course one should always check the manual and try a web search
before asking for help. This is a given, and I don't think there's any
argument.
It's not always easy to find what you're looking for in the manual, and
it's not always straightforward to construct a search query that yields
what you're looking for. Your success varies with multiple factors:
your facility with reading *and* with writing English, as noted; the way
you're framing the problem in your mind; the character of the problem;
the terminology involved; the organizational structure of the manual vs.
the kind of problem you're trying to solve; your existing familiarity
with the subject and with the reference material available. These can
interplay to make one person's search fruitless, or to suggest that
further search will be fruitless, while another person might come up
with the answer right away.
So a person posts to a list that is nominally for providing support,
answers, and discussion. How can I fairly judge whether he's read the
manual, or how deeply? Just based on my knowing where the answer is,
and thinking "he should have found it too?" I don't think that's a fair
measure.
Yet I don't think it's the point, either. Even if someone has not done
his own legwork, how is anyone's time well spent for me to tell them
publically to do so? I don't see that, as someone suggested, this is
helpful. It's condescending. It's saying: "it's there, you missed it.
Look again. But I won't say where to look because I think the exercise
of finding it yourself is good for you, grasshopper."
Even in this thread, Bill's question just by being asked has sparked
original discussion of other approaches than what you'll find in the
manual. Is there no value in that? Does anyone suggest some other way
to obtain that benefit, besides having and expressing a need?
It's absurd to say that you should not post a how-to question to a
mailing list until you're sure the answer is not already out there,
or prepared with your flame-retardant jammies. If I don't have time
to help with a basic question, or I don't want to, or I resent the
simplicity of the question or the way it was asked, I don't reply. It's
simple, it causes no grief. The question, unanswered, has done me no
harm. I am facile with my 'd' key.
What's the trouble? Let people ask questions honestly and politely,
but if all you have to give is "rtfm", with no reference or citation or
vague hint at a substantive answer, then don't bother replying -- or at
least keep it out of the mailing list archive and my mailbox, please.
Save "RTFM" for abusive and demanding inquiries only, and you'll see
less abuse and fewer demands.
--
-D. dgc@xxxxxxxxxxxx NSIT University of Chicago