The following is largely extracted from an article produced by Andrew S Baker, which can be
found here.
I did seek (and receive) permission to use his article. The reason for the rewrite is that his article deals
largely with his ongoing support of NT Systems Administrators on the
Sunbelt NTSysAdmin list
(amongst others) and as such contains various bits which are not really relevant to programming lists...
Readers are also directed to How to ask
questions the smart way which also provides excellent advice on how to structure your questions so that people
will help you with your problems.
Being Self-Sufficient: The Great Debate
Every few months or so, the issue of answering newbie (and repetitive) questionsand whether people
are doing sufficient research prior to requesting assistance rages on a list.
On the one side, we have the "Everyone was once a newbie" crowd, with the
opposing forces made up of the "Kindly Do Your Homework" contingent.
My main issue is that many of these lists were setup to allow programmers to discuss
the challenges that they face on a day to day basis, and to discover things that are likely
learned only through trial and error. Many of these lists include specific links to FAQ so as to
keep repetitive questions at bay. For example:
However, it would appear that many people consider the mailing lists as a substitute for
basic research, writing their own code, reading supplied manuals and for technical support,
including vendor phone and web support.
Some common arguments that I have seen used to support this behavior are:
- I'm under a lot of pressure to fix this...
- I'm busy, and I know someone has done this before...
- It's too hard to find stuff on the web...
- It's faster to just ask the list than look it up...
- I don't want to go through the hassle of testing this stuff myself when others have installed it...
- Please reply to me directly, as I don't have any time to read through all the messages on the list.
These comments imply that the time of the person seeking assistance is of far
more importance than those who will answer the question(s), and that the people
who have toiled and labored to obtain answers for their problems are somehow
obligated to give those answers to anyone else who comes along.
For example, there is a vast difference between the two statements below:
#1 - "I would like to accomplish X. I got some sample code from <website here> and modified it as follows <current code>.
I'm currently getting the following error:
ADO Connection Error 8000abcd
Some Error Message
I look in the Microsoft Knowlegde Base but couldn't find the error listed.
I've also tried the following combinations of code, but they didn't work for the following reasons: <reasons here> This is my current
setup: <current software/hardware>
- VS -
#2 - "Show me how I do X"
Clearly, the first sentence conveys that poster has done some research. Even if they are
not able to clearly define what they are trying to achieve other list members can see from
the website listed (as well as the supplied code). Furthermore it can be seem that the
poster has made some systematic attempt to eliminate the source of the problem.
Lastly, the poster has supplied the relevant code, the error that it is generating and
the error message along with their current system configuration.
The second sentence on the other hand indicates someone who is looking
to do as little work as possible, and will result in more queries to obtain a
better idea of what the desired goal is.
It has often been suggested that if someone asks a question that one feels
is inappropriate or covered by a FAQ, that one should simply ignore it. Obviously,
there is some merit to this idea.
OTOH, if there is no deterrent to the type of questions that are covered in other venues [1], then
more and more people will abuse the list in this fashion, negating the primary benefit of the list as
a forum for discussing complex situations and challenging solutions. If you foster an environment
that condones those types of questions, you will soon find yourself answering ONLY those types of questions.
There is absolutely NO reason why anyone who has found their way to the mailing list should not also be able
to find their way to:
or some other avenue of true assistance for novice programmers. Many of the lists also have
archives searchable via a web interface on the same page that the subscription information is on.
The poster that fails to read messages already posted is another problem. Many posters seem to
believe that a list is a resource for getting responses to your post, rather than resource for
solving your problem. The former involves posting your problem to the list, and the later involves
looking through existing posts to see if the problem has been solved before, and the posting your problem if you still
can't find the answer.
For some reason posters believe that other people on the list who answer questions have
nothing better to do than re-key the same information over and over again. This issue
ties into the broader issue of failing to do basic research, but in this case the additional
research involves doing nothing more than reading previous posts on an email list
that the subscriber is already on.
The "Incomplete Question" is another issue that brings about hot debate.
Many seem perturbed when a poster's vague question spawns a number of requests
for more, relevant info with which to provide a pertinent answer. Think about it:
why should WE have to do all the legwork for someone who is experiencing a problem if
THEY don't care enough about their own problem to provide enough info with which to
gain proper assistance? Would they leave out as many details if they were calling
Microsoft for support?
Also, the suggestion that people are automatically *entitled* to support from
members of a mailing list is tremendously misguided. So too is the suggestion
that any rendered assistance must be cheerful and tolerant. You get what you
pay for. I cannot speak for anyone but else, but I have no problems providing
information to others. However, I am not *obligated* to do any such thing simply
because it is assumed that I needed such help in the past, or because I am on the
list and helped other people before.
There was definitely a time when I did not know what I know now, but no-one
sat down and spoon-fed me with all the answers, either. Much of my knowledge
was gained by subscribing to many lists, newsgroups and newsletters, and making
use of search engines AND (most importantly) trying stuff out on my own. I have
never assumed that those that know more than me are obligated to pass their
knowledge on to me. My continued participation in these lists is to see what
type of problems people are encountering day to day, and how others are solving them.
I've learned things from the lists that I didn't use at the time, but that were critical when
I started on other projects. [2]
I have no problems helping others, as long as it is clear to me that the person who is
in need of assistance has made some effort to get a handle of their problem on their own.
This is referred to as "Due Diligence". When someone posts a message with
a lot of supporting info and says, "I looked here, I tried this, I obtained this result,
but I'm stuck here", it is very easy to take the time and help this person out, even
if you don't have the answer right at the tip of your tongue. For that matter, it is
easier to provide the right answer when all the details are laid out like this.
In short, warm, courteous [3] support is not the objective of a free, non-vendor sponsored
mailing list or newsgroup. If you want cheerful and accurate support CALL MICROSOFT.
If you want to discuss complex scenarios that can help you with your projects, then these lists
can be a key resource...
Lastly, please remember that an emergency on your part does not constitute an
emergency on mine. When writing a message to a support list remember that your message
is just as urgent (or not urgent) as anyone else's as far as I am concerned. This means that
when writing your message, please do not use "URGENT URGENT URGENT" as the
subject (because the message isn't urgent to the people you are sending it to). Please
take the time to read over your message to ensure that it is clear what information
you are seeking. Please run a spellchecker over your message to correct any mis-typed
words, and please ensure that you have reasonable punctuation. Please include as much
relevant information as you can - error messages, code you are using, what you have
tried, what you want to accomplish and what your system setup is.
A failure to do these things indicates to me that you value your time much more
highly than you value mine: that you'd rather I spent my time trying to work out
what your message says, and puzzle over what your problem is rather than
you taking some time to make it easier for me to diagnose/solve your problem.
Thankyou for your time, and I look forward to talking to you soon.
[1] FAQs, Vendor Help, Newsletters
[2] This is why I laugh when I see e-mail that says, "I delete messages that talk about things I don't use."
[3] Mailing Lists come with their own culture. If you cannot deal with it, then you are in the wrong place...
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