Re: [hobbit] Sorry... I had to vent

[Jerald Sheets <questy (at) gmail.com>]

I think it's more than that, guys, (and I totally reject both your premise and your conclusions, Jim)

To be a viable, contributing member of any online "society", you also should offer something to the conversation.  

Since those who are "newbies" haven't any "intellectual collateral" to add to the conversation, they take part in the conversation by understanding the syntax, vis a vis, knowing the very basics as outlined in the documentation.

If you come to the conversation wanting to do no footwork, not reading the documentation and asking to be spoon-fed all the answers, that is leaching.  


Let me use an example.

If this were, say, a motorcycle enthusiast group.  Now say, that everyone starts talking about leathers and the need for various materials as protective panels in leathers and the science behind all that.  Now, let's say a new guy comes in and this particular motorcycle group has a wonderful glossary of terms, instructions on riding, mailing list history, and links to several of the technologies discussed on the group and asks on the list..  "What are leathers?".

Is the impetus on the group to say leathers are....   or, is it better citizenry to say "you know, we have a ton of information you should probably read before trying to take part in this conversation...  maybe you should go do that."

In the motorcycle world, that might take the form of "piss off, newbie".  It's just facts.

In our world, it's RTFM (and I use it for it's technological significance in our world.  if you don't want to ready the fine manual, then don't.  If you want to ascribe profanity to the term, then YOU have ascribed the profanity.  This writer does not, keep those terms to yourself)

The POINT is that there are MANY avenues of documentation that we have for this group.  Much too often these days on this list the questions are turning into "show me precisely how to do something that is clearly outlined in our documentation".  We need to roll back for a minute as a community and determine whether that is where we want to take the group.  If so, then perhaps this is not the place for me.  

For instance, I had a problem with RRD not graphing properly.  I went through our docs, and searched the mailing list.  When I couldn't find the answers I was looking for, I went to the rrdtool website and looked for more information on the nature of how rrdtool makes graphs.  I wanted to make sure i understood the entire workflow of how this stuff works both in and out of the Hobbit/Xymon framework to be sure that were I to come here and ask a question:

a) I did my homework, and the answer was not obviously staring me in the face in all the usual places
b) I had not overlooked a conversation clearly listing the answer in the list archive
c) I had not fatfingered something in RRD-land, and it would never work given the documentation available on RRDtool.

Then and only then would I consider posting a question and I would also outline all the things I'd read and done thus far looking for the answer, and then would pose my question.  If the answer would be more documentation, I would gladly receive that and continue to try and educate myself.

Not once would I ever come to just have my question answered without doing any footwork of my own first.

"Just give me the answer" is never good citizenship, and should not be encouraged.  From my very earliest dealings here on the list, I've tried to do so and I believe if you run a search, my contributions (even as a stone-cold newbie) speak for themselves.  

We should each endeavor to reject the urge for laziness and do everything we can to all help each other as much as possible, but it should never be ok to spoon-feed anyone.  That's my opinion.

Ok, I've said my piece.  I'll crawl back in my home directory...

--j




On Mar 23, 2010, at 9:53 PM, Josh Luthman wrote:

> Well what he is saying is that if someone clicks "help" then "this"
> they would get the information without bothering anyone filling the
> inbox or interrupting the IRC conversation.
> 
> On 3/23/10, Smith, Jim <JMSmith (at) stvincenthealth.com> wrote:
>> Jerald,
>> 
>> I don't make many comments on this board anymore, but I want to chime-in
>> on this.
>> 
>> I agree with what you say about people needing to read the
>> documentation.  However, I don't agree with your tone.  Even the acronym
>> "RTFM" is an insult, in my opinion.
>> 
>> We were all "newbies" at some point and probably asked some dumb
>> questions ourselves.
>> 
>> Jim Smith
>> SVHS
>> Little Rock
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jerald Sheets [mailto:questy (at) gmail.com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 8:17 PM
>> To: hobbit (at) hswn.dk
>> Subject: [hobbit] Sorry... I had to vent
>> 
>> Does anyone at all RTFM any more?
>> 
>> We have wikis, docs, a several-year mailing list archive, three
>> wonderful software and addon repositories.
>> 
>> Still, we have questions that are in the man pages on the freaking Xymon
>> menu and even in their own separate page on the Xymon help menu in the
>> installation itself.
>> 
>> This group exists to help when you've reached a level of proficiency,
>> and thing that aren't clearly spelled out in the docs are not working as
>> expected, or there are little "gotchas" that you might need help with
>> that we've all been through.
>> 
>> True, I'm the first person to grump at someone when they don't receive a
>> newcomer in a friendly manner, but coming on here and asking questions
>> that are clearly laid out in the docs is just plain lazy.
>> 
>> I wouldn't even let my teenagers get away with that.
>> 
>> 
>> Guys, if you have questions there is no one more ready than I to help
>> you trudge through a problem.  But when you don't so much as get into
>> the docs and ferret out the basic functionality of the software, you
>> really make it hard to even want to help you.
>> 
>> On your Xymon install:  just mouse over the "Help" menu, and all your
>> basic answers will be there.  If you get into a hairy spot, bring it
>> here and we can ll puzzle over it together.
>> 
>> 
>> (sorry... I had three separate people ask precisely the kind of question
>> that showed they didn't want to do the basic footwork necessary to make
>> their app work, and expected suppor to just do it all for them.  They
>> wouldn't even read the manual it took me weeks to put together and post
>> on the company intranet.)
>> 
>> I actually heard the words today "I don't want to read that book" (22
>> pages, mind you) "I just want you to make it work."
>> 
>> It's a statistical package...  you actually have to know basic
>> statistics.  They don't.
>> 
>> UGH!
>> 
>> Sorry again.  A real RTFM moment for me.
>> 
>> 
>> --j
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> 
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