Forum faux pas?

[damian]

I try to be polite when I'm pointing out that a search will answer the question or that the thread is old.

If I'm trying to help someone I'm doing it voluntarily and at no cost. You have no right to demand a helpful post from me.

If the questioner is new then pointing out the usefullness of search is educating and helping them.

[mikm]

Lots of good stuff here. And this reminds me of another point to add to the list: people with short attention spans who whine about long posts. >

damian, regarding old threads: under the circumstances you mention, I agree that a new poster is a bit of a dill, but said dill is occasionally crucified for what is arguably a fairly small infraction. Regarding obvious questions, I don’t agree with your analogy. In each example, the waiter or the librarian is obliged by good manners to respond to a question asked of them by the general public and also to their employer to carry out the job for which they were employed.
I don’t think one is necessarily ‘guilty’ of asking FAQ’s, but I do agree that a bit of a search first is the right thing to do.

Telling someone to do a search or check a date can help them to become better acquainted with the tools available to us here. "How" they are told is probably where the real issue lies.

Absolutely

I don't see any problem with pointing it out, especially when it's a very specific query that will not be of much value to anyone else.

Hmmm, that’s a pretty big call to make, silent. I would have thought the only person qualified or more specifically, with the right to make value judgements on posts, is our benevolent dictator himself.

The real question is whether or not you should let it bother you.

Mate, I couldn’t agree more as that’s exactly my point. An internet forum isn’t a face to face interaction where good manners require you to listen to each comment and respond accordingly. It’s a whole lot easier to ignore silly posts than to get hot under the collar about it to the point of an unbearable urge tell them how stupid they are for whatever reason.

As above, Peter, I reckon Neil has every right to do whatever he likes here. His playground, his rules, enforced by his deputies. Cant see how any ‘disciplinary’ rights are implied or otherwise to the rest of us drones, just because the boss does it.

Seems to be some reasonable sentiments there, Papa.


Continued below...

[mikm]

Bob; another one I should have added to the list, perhaps. I too find a vacuous title along the lines of “Help!!!” a serious disincentive to read it, underlining my point from above: I don’t get stressed about it, jump into the thread and grumble about how silly it is. I just ignore it and move onto something that actually interests me.

Pretty much sums up my position, Rattrap and I think damian has a good handle on it as well, although I think there is some “loss in translation’ occurring in a conversation by correspondence. I read Rattrap’s post along the lines of ‘if you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t bother saying it’, not an expectation of help. That’s my take on it anyway. We’ll have to wait and see what he thinks.
Thanks for your input, peoples

Cheers,
Mick

[silentC]

Hmmm, that’s a pretty big call to make, silent. I would have thought the only person qualified or more specifically, with the right to make value judgements on posts, is our benevolent dictator himself.

To the contrary, I think it is an opinion that anyone here has the right to hold and express. Whether it counts for anything or not is a different matter. Incidentally, in addition to Neil, who rarely shows his head around here these days, you have all the moderators, whose opinion does carry some weight. So I guess if they are unhappy with the situation with respect to "do a search" postings, they will make it known by editing or deleting the post, as they frequently do when posts "break the rules". So considering that none have been deleted that I'm aware of, I can safely conclude that no-one in a position of power has an issue with it.

[silentC]

I read Rattrap’s post along the lines of ‘if you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t bother saying it’, not an expectation of help.

I don't read it that way.

Honestly if u can't be bothered to respond to the question with a useful answer or at least post a link to a previous thread then why even bother responding in the first place?

He wants me to go and find the thread and post a link to it. I have done that before, but I certainly wouldn't do it if I thought it was expected. It's all about your attitude.

As a last resort, if you find someone's contributions unhelpful, you can always use the "ignore this member" option.

[mic-d]

I think there is something wrong with members who tell you to do a search when you've been a member for a number of years A recent example where I had something new to add about the search engine. I don't like the 'do a search' response when there is an implication that's it's all been done before and noone can possibly add to the previous information.
There was another thread I posted recently about a technique I found useful, (that had not been mentioned before) that quickly turned to a discussion of other methods that had been discussed before. Someone suggested I should have done a search, based on seeing everyone else's chatter. That also annoyed me a bit. So, don't post "do a search" to me (I've been around long enough to know what to do) or else I come and find you..

Cheers
Michael

[mikm]

To the contrary, I think it is an opinion that anyone here has the right to hold and express.

Yeah, come to think of it, you're probably right there, mate. Every member is of course entitled to their opinions. (without wanting to bring down my genuine sentiments in what I just wrote, begin togue in cheek speculation on my part, as I'm no expert here ) Also, since wwf is a .com, not a .com.au site and thus hosted in the States, free speech is an enforcable right. With an absence of a bill of rights, the only right to fredoom of speech in Aus is that of political free speech. (end smarty pants)

I Agree that a lack of comment/action on the part of the mods/owner simply reinforces that no forum rules have been broken. However, it has no bearing on whether the type of comments being discussed here are any more or less sensible, silly, rude or otherwise. It was interest in people's thougts on the latter that inspired me to begin the thread.

....I certainly wouldn't do it if I thought it was expected. It's all about your attitude.

As a last resort, if you find someone's contributions unhelpful, you can always use the "ignore this member" option.

I think you're spot on there.

[silentC]

I think, like most things in life, it comes down to how it's done. If it's dismissive, I can understand people getting their knickers in a knot over it. On the other hand, I truly believe that suggesting someone search a topic is actually helpful advice in many cases.

In this day and age there really is no excuse for not knowing the answer to something, when all you have to do is Google it. I find myself stopping myself asking people questions now, because all I have to do is go and Google it and I know I'll find an answer: it's no longer necessary to wonder when that song was released, or how that stuff is made, or what happened to so and so. In a way it's a conversation killer. And you have people who race off to Google things when you're having an argument. I see questions asked in Column8 (Sydney Morning Herald) and I wonder "don't these people have Internet connections?"

Forums like this are great for collecting wisdom, advice and information together in one place. If you just replied "do a search" to any topic that ever comes up, we'd have nothing to post about any more. We'd be restricted to talking about new tools and showing photos of the work we've done. I've learned a lot just by participating in discussions here, even though some of them have been done to death.

However, I think there is a place for suggesting a search. My advice is, if someone seems to be genuinely trying to help, don't bite their head off, either give it a go, or ignore it. If they seem to be just being smart asres, consider that not everyone is in possession of a bedside manner, and then drop on them from a great height No, we should be polite to each other at all times

[mikm]

Forums like this are great for collecting wisdom, advice and information together in one place. If you just replied "do a search" to any topic that ever comes up, we'd have nothing to post about any more. We'd be restricted to talking about new tools and showing photos of the work we've done. I've learned a lot just by participating in discussions here, even though some of them have been done to death.

However, I think there is a place for suggesting a search. My advice is, if someone seems to be genuinely trying to help, don't bite their head off, either give it a go, or ignore it. If they seem to be just being smart asres, consider that not everyone is in possession of a bedside manner, and then drop on them from a great height No, we should be polite to each other at all times

Definitely. A great example I saw earlier today on how it should be done is this.

So anyway silent, you and I both seem to have been on all morning. I'm at home looking after sick kids. What's your excuse? Why aren't you in the workshop making sawdust?

Seriously though, thanks for your input.

[silentC]

I'm in my office, which is in my shed, but I'm not making sawdust because I've got work to do

[Sturdee]

As above, Peter, I reckon Neil has every right to do whatever he likes here. His playground, his rules, enforced by his deputies. Cant see how any ‘disciplinary’ rights are implied or otherwise to the rest of us drones, just because the boss does it.

I tend to disagree with you. If you look at Neill's post you can see that he wasn't very happy, to the extend that he was shouting, with the poster asking a question again when it has been covered a lot of times before.

From that I infer that there are times when an instruction to do a search without any further details is appropriate.

Personally I don't do it anymore as I can't be bothered posting when it's obvious that a search will give the answer, often in a pararell thread, eg the recent GMC threads running concurrently.

Peter.

[damian]

Definitely. A great example I saw earlier today on how it should be done is this.

So anyway silent, you and I both seem to have been on all morning. I'm at home looking after sick kids. What's your excuse? Why aren't you in the workshop making sawdust?

Seriously though, thanks for your input.

You linked to one of my posts there but it's not clear to me what you were saying about it. Are you using me as an example of poor posting, abuse, dismissal, or being helpful ?

I try to be helpful but I am well aware that sometimes the way I word things comes across as aggression. It's partly because I try to present short precise statments of what I think or know and that can look like I've got my back up sometimes.

Those little animations are hilarious aren't they ?

[silentC]

A great example I saw earlier today on how it should be done

[damian]

Right. Saw that but wasn't sure. Thank you.

[mikm]

Just had a look back over what I originally had to say, to realise it could have been better worded with greater context specificity. I was trying to work out why I seemed to be in a disagreement with you Peter (which to me is odd since I generally/always have a great deal of respect for 'Sturdee' posts) and I think I just wasn't clear enough initially. So.

In general, while I reckon the phrase 'use the search function' is stating the obvious, new members with post counts in the single digits and the rest of us in a brain fade sometimes benefit from such. So yes, on reflection, I think you're quite right about the suggestion having validity.
That leaves the tone of delivery. What I had in mind in the passage you originally quoted was the somewhat ordinary manner with which presenting the suggestion is often carried out. While a generalisation, on the majority of occasions I have noticed the hapless 'asker' of the 'obvious question' is promply flogged. I dont like using the post by Neil you linked to as an example because he above all others is entitled to do whatever he likes, but I would suggest that the tone displayed coming from anyone else is unnecessary, hence my link to damien's post as a good example of helpful advice

Apologies for the confusion, damien. silentC was on the money - the 'it' I was referring to was 'helpfully pointing someone in the right direction'.