From: Aaron Turner Date: 2008-05-08T00:50:41+09:00 Subject: Re: Posting Culture On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Robert Klemme wrote: > All, > > is it just me or do we see a shift in postings toward the "can you > please do my work for me?" type of questions? I get the impression > that reading Ruby docs and other types of research are going more and > more out of fashion. Do we give away too much for free? I know, > nobody has to reply to those questions, but I believe this tendency is > doing harm to the culture of this (still) friendly community. > > Just to make it clear: I am not generally discrediting people that > seek support but I do have a heavy dislike for laziness. It's not just a Ruby issue. I see it in a variety of other forums and I too find the general laziness out there annoying. It's even worse when people don't bother to understand their problem sufficiently to even know what information they need to give you. Things like "it won't compile" and don't bother to mention what OS they're using or provide the actual error message. *sigh* Generally, I find the best solution is to reply with the URL to appropriate resource (online docs, google search results, etc). If it's really bad then I send them: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html -- Aaron Turner http://synfin.net/ http://tcpreplay.synfin.net/ - Pcap editing & replay tools for Unix They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin