It works at three levels:
1. Selfish... It's fine for people to play the game at level one, because they are also helping others learn and work their way up the skill ladder
Wow - that is a really cool observation. Atwood just went way up in my estimation for expressing this.
This fights against the "Go read the 2000 page manual, you idiot!"-itis found on specialist sites.
A reference manual is a terrible learning tool. It is only useful if you know what you are looking for. For that matter, it is difficult to use if you don't know the correct words to search for, as he mentions elsewhere when discussing duplicate questions.
Programmers who get off on saying RTFM are useless and should not be allowed anywhere near such discussions. If you were sitting next to the guy, you would answer the answer, not say this. Help someone find the answer to an actual question quickly.
On a personal note for SE, "This is a duplicate question." needs a link to the duplicate question. Again terminology for search issues. And if they provide it, note to their UI people, I can't easily see it. It just seems like a snotty response + "Denied!"
Yeah, I'm sure to master systemd from reading its manpages.
Good documentation is hard to come by. Most of documentation out there seems to be more of a logbook where developers log their achievements and describe what they made in terms only they can understand. It's way too often unreadable for the outsiders.
A good documentation needs a document that describes the structure of the whole thing, how its elements influence each other and how the user can affect them. Provide usage patterns, examples with expl
No no no... The SO/SE help files to see that the dupes are linked to the questions which they duplicate. I've never seen one marked as a duplicate in error but I suspect there are some due to humans making errors but if it's closed as a duplicate then there's a link to the original or best suited question. Sometimes questions aren't marked as duplicates as nobody notices so you end up with some duplicated content which means you may find that the newer question has better answers.
You can also usually set a bounty on a question with existing answers if they are not to your satisfaction. It's costly in terms of karma, but it can un-bury an ancient question and attract new, better answers.
Yeah, I gotta get that badge on AU. I've got the reputation for it (I don't do it for points - I do it to learn and spend most of my time there asking questions in the comments trying to tease out the problem and don't care enough to write out solutions often - someone comes along and does it for me) so that's not a problem. I can also earn more points with editing and whatnot. Meh... I should still get the badge. They're Pokebadges. Gotta catch 'em all.
Recalling a hint from xkcd about sudoers(5) [www.sudo.ws]: the description of the sudoers file format starts with a "Quick guide to EBNF" and the whole manual is roughly 13,000 words long. When you want to change the password prompt timeout today, RTwholeFM before opening visudo is not an option.
Perhaps what #51029267 meant is that you ought to have read through sudo(8) and sudoers(5) not just before you visudo but even before you sudo in the first place.
RTFM may or may not be useful, depending on how you say it. If that's all you say, then yes, it's useless. But if you provide a link to TFM (or maybe a chapter/section number of a readily-accessible book) then you are pointing someone at the right answer without doing his work for him.
This is especially important if the question is (or appears to be) someone's homework assignment.
In the (not so rare) cases where a question was closed as a duplicate even though it was not, the right course of action is to act the question for a third time. This time - underlying differences and focus; linking the existing "duplicates" and telling how they don't answer what you need. It works.
Also, don't treat every single closure as a "punishment".
"Duplicate" closures mean people still get the correct answer (at the original question) but they still provide alternative paths to find it.
It may be a SO domain specific feature, but the ones I use do provide a link at the top of the question stating what it may be a duplicate of. I'm sure it requires some sort of admin to find the question and plop the url in it.
As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there
is always a future in Computer Maintenance.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
Three cheers for selfishness! (Score:2, Interesting)
It works at three levels: 1. Selfish ... It's fine for people to play the game at level one, because they are also helping others learn and work their way up the skill ladder
Wow - that is a really cool observation. Atwood just went way up in my estimation for expressing this.
Re:Three cheers for selfishness! (Score:2)
This fights against the "Go read the 2000 page manual, you idiot!"-itis found on specialist sites.
A reference manual is a terrible learning tool. It is only useful if you know what you are looking for. For that matter, it is difficult to use if you don't know the correct words to search for, as he mentions elsewhere when discussing duplicate questions.
Programmers who get off on saying RTFM are useless and should not be allowed anywhere near such discussions. If you were sitting next to the guy, you would answer the answer, not say this. Help someone find the answer to an actual question quickly.
On a personal note for SE, "This is a duplicate question." needs a link to the duplicate question. Again terminology for search issues. And if they provide it, note to their UI people, I can't easily see it. It just seems like a snotty response + "Denied!"
Re: (Score:2)
Or, you know, maybe he should RTFM... That's not even *hard* to find.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm sure to master systemd from reading its manpages.
Good documentation is hard to come by. Most of documentation out there seems to be more of a logbook where developers log their achievements and describe what they made in terms only they can understand. It's way too often unreadable for the outsiders.
A good documentation needs a document that describes the structure of the whole thing, how its elements influence each other and how the user can affect them. Provide usage patterns, examples with expl
Re: (Score:2)
No no no... The SO/SE help files to see that the dupes are linked to the questions which they duplicate. I've never seen one marked as a duplicate in error but I suspect there are some due to humans making errors but if it's closed as a duplicate then there's a link to the original or best suited question. Sometimes questions aren't marked as duplicates as nobody notices so you end up with some duplicated content which means you may find that the newer question has better answers.
Re: (Score:2)
You can also usually set a bounty on a question with existing answers if they are not to your satisfaction. It's costly in terms of karma, but it can un-bury an ancient question and attract new, better answers.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I gotta get that badge on AU. I've got the reputation for it (I don't do it for points - I do it to learn and spend most of my time there asking questions in the comments trying to tease out the problem and don't care enough to write out solutions often - someone comes along and does it for me) so that's not a problem. I can also earn more points with editing and whatnot. Meh... I should still get the badge. They're Pokebadges. Gotta catch 'em all.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I could do without my couple "Tumbleweed"s.
Re: (Score:1)
Recalling a hint from xkcd about sudoers(5) [www.sudo.ws]: the description of the sudoers file format starts with a "Quick guide to EBNF" and the whole manual is roughly 13,000 words long. When you want to change the password prompt timeout today, RTwholeFM before opening visudo is not an option.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps what #51029267 meant is that you ought to have read through sudo(8) and sudoers(5) not just before you visudo but even before you sudo in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
This is especially important if the question is (or appears to be) someone's homework assignment.
Re: (Score:2)
In the (not so rare) cases where a question was closed as a duplicate even though it was not, the right course of action is to act the question for a third time. This time - underlying differences and focus; linking the existing "duplicates" and telling how they don't answer what you need. It works.
Also, don't treat every single closure as a "punishment".
"Duplicate" closures mean people still get the correct answer (at the original question) but they still provide alternative paths to find it.
"Migration" cl
Re: (Score:1)