On Fri, 2002-08-23 at 02:45, LPH wrote: > FWIW, I berated the emailer for providing a link that he had not read and was not using - despite berating someone else for not RTFM ... > > I'll repeat that part because it has value - please do not tell someone to read something - if - you - in fact - have not read it. That is not the intention of RTFM. > > Instead, if you do a search for a man, info, or web page then let the person know what you did - so that they can follow what you modeled. I did read it, as I said, I wasn't trying to flame. I'm apologizing, again, if that sounded flame-ish, it was not my intent. > > People are using RTFM improperly as an ego boost - by saying - I spent 2 minutes and found an answer to your "stupid" question. They then leave out "HOW" they found the answer as well as the answer -- and this leaves the person hanging. SO - someone who says RTFM is doing nothing but showing off. > > IMHO, everyone will learn more by modeling and not chastising. After all, I'm here to learn. Hopefully this diatribe is of value to those interested in learning too. Otherwise, sorry for not keeping it brief. > I was only speaking of a hypothetical situation, I actually tell people what they should be reading when telling them to RTFM. I'm even sometimes telling them what part of said manual they should read. Telling them the exact answer isn't really a good thing, as they won't be doing the search themselfes. The way I see it, I am helping him help himself, which, on the long run, is way better than just helping him. PS Do wrap your lines at 80 characters or less. (No, I am not trying to make a point, I just hate the way it looks, especially when reading my mail via SSH, with mutt) -- PGP public key: http://www.wolfheart.ro/pubkey.asc
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part