[OT] - [Asterisk-Users] Why should I answer a Newbie question,therethick!

[Steven Critchfield]

On Thu, 2005-03-03 at 17:59 -0700, Paul Fielding wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> > Look, don't answer lame questions if you don't want to. Flaming a newb
> > for being a newb is just mean. (they will eventually RTFM or STFW or
> > they will fail). This is the way of the open source community.
> 
> Here Here, I'm with you.  I find it a constant source of amazement how, in 
> all the various lists I've followed, people find it necessary to beat on the 
> new guy.  Even the 'if you don't want to get flamed then do some research 
> first' attitude i'm not a fan of.  Sometimes newbies are also newbies to the 
> concept of lists, etc, as well as the topic of the list.
> 
> Frankly, I agree.  If you don't like the question, feel it's lame or dumb, 
> or don't like that someone hasn't done their research, then delete the 
> message.   If you think they're wasting your time by writing a message, then 
> don't waste any more of your own time by responding to it.  I find the 
> pummelling of newbies more annoying than the newbie question itself.

As I have told others before. This list is a valuable resource even for
those of us who know a lot about asterisk already. The users who would
rather come here than do any work on their own become pollution to this
list. They are the repetitive spam that has no benefit to the ones
receiving it.

This type of behavior has run many of the "guru"s off of this list. They
are unlikely to be replaced. 

BTW, telling a user they haven't done the prerequisite home work before
asking a question is no where near pummelling. Pummelling would be
calling them names and making personal attacks. Life is full of venues
where you need to meet specific criteria before you are considered
worthy of interacting.

All that to lay the ground work to say that when we send a user back out
to the search engines to do their homework, we do so as a jealous
protecting of this forum and what value we receive from it.
-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>