Asking Smart Questions (continued)

[Fairlight]

For some reason, I never saw the original to which Wayne is responding.
I'll have to hop on this one.

You'll never BELIEVE what SmittyUSN1 at aol.com said here...:
> AMEN !!!!!!  I would agree COMPLETELY to  what postmaster at cobbinc.com 
> said......

Wow, Wayne.  There's a shocker.  A "me too!!!!" post from you, on a subject
on which you're somewhat less than adequately prepared to face-off, quoting
the whole damned thing to add one line of opinion.  At least standards
aren't slipping any, and we can count on you to maintain the status quo.
Thanks for not rocking my world view too violently.

Now...on to the quoted message that had -actual- content:

> In a message dated 6/13/2005 7:46:06 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
> postmaster at cobbinc.com writes:
> I think y'all are missing a BIG point in this discussion.
> There seems to be a lot of haggeling over HOW someone asks for 'HELP'
> especially if it does not conform to YOUR standards.

"Accepted standards."  Not mine.  Not Jay's.  Not any -one- person's.  A
general concensus of opinion that is far bigger than the tiny little group
we have going here.  A concensus that spans all of the reasonable parts of
USENET (and even some of the less reasonable parts), and thousands upon
thousands of mailing lists.  Not ~300 people.  Several million people.

If you want to go by the Small Picture, yes, a few of us are in the
minority -here-.  If you want to look at the Big Picture, we have solid
footing rooted in sound foundations that serve online communities quite
well everywhere else, and we just happen to be the ones that actually know
what we're talking about on the matter.

Has it ever dawned on you (or anyone else taking issue) that the people
that complain about old-style nettiquette around here are the ones who have
been online the longest?  JPR, JE, Bob, I fall in somewhere after their
time, but had BBS experience as well and was online half a decade before
the real ISP boom...several others around here.  We've all been around long
enough to know how it's been, how it is, how it should be, how it works
best, and the differences between them.

A good percentage here probably first got on when AOHell or some equally
lax "provider" opened a dialing pool in their locale.

> If I see someone bobbing up and down in the water and they are yelling
> "HELP!" I do not stand there, Life Preserver in hand, and yell back "Say 
> PLEASE!"

Poor extrapolation.  One is life-threatening; the other is not.  Invalid
comparison.

> After all, which teacher did you learn more from, the one who whacked
> your hand with a ruler all the time, or the one that nurtured you along
> and let you make a few mistakes but kept you on the path?

The one that whacked my hand with a ruler.  She instilled so much fear that
you didn't dare NOT learn.

As with parents, teachers are there to TEACH, not to be your best friend.
More touchy-feely "feel good" BS comes to the surface.  Since when did
obtaining knowledge become something that was to be obtained easily and
without a few bumps and bruises?  You think any of the pioneers in any
field of science as we've come to know it had it -easy-?  Hell, they
-killed- some of them for their beliefs.  They sure as hell weren't
nurtured, coddled, or otherwise befriended.  And yet...somehow they
LEARNED, against all odds.

Imagine that...real effort yielding real results.

> Not everyone who reads this list is as vell versed as the proverbial
> 'Next Guy'.

Granted.  When did ignorance become an excuse, again?

> Think about it, what happens, on this list, when someone asks a really
> basic (to us) question like 'How do I make it show the date on a report?'
>
> You 'Top_Of_The_Mountain types put a LOT of effort into "Say PLEASE!"

There's no top of the mountain.  There are the experienced and the
inexperienced, the educated and the ignorant.  Those of us not ignorant of
the proper way of asking/reporting/whatever actually generate results in
a short time-frame.  Those that are not...well, there are your 30-message
plus threads--and that's -before- the flame wars set in.  That's just
solving the original problem, assuming there was one in the first place,
and it wasn't a figment of someone's imagination.  (If you're -going- to
have a figment of imagination, please at least be able to elucidate it
clearly.)

As I said, there are those that know what they're doing, and those that
don't.  Those that do are not only helping you with your immediate
technical problems (for free), but trying to help you help the less
clued with their electronic social faux pas as well.  If there's a
caste system inherent, which you seem to imply and I'd be prepared to
tentatively concede based on certain criteria, there's -every- indication
that by trying to raise the people who don't have a clue to a -higher-
understanding of how to do not only what they want to do, but how to get
better (and faster) results--they're actually trying to -eliminate- such a
division and level the playing field.  You're getting more than you even
asked for in the bargain, and still you complain about the injustice of it
all.  It boggles the mind.

Why would anyone complain about the attempted -elimination- of such a
division?  I've got to be the least conformist person around here I can
think of (ask JE, as he's heard me make some splendidly stupid remarks
stemming from that personality flaw of mine--he can attest to my ready lack
of conformity), and yet it seems like a good idea even to me.

When even -I- can agree with the stated "rules", anti-conformist and
anti-authoritarian though I have always been (and probably always will be),
there must be something seriously askew with those that still can't.  I
just don't conform easily, so there must be a Damned Good Reason if I do.

Think about it.

mark->