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  • Subject: RE: Too many answer to simple questions
  • From: "Weatherly, Howard" <hweatherly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 09:10:23 -0500

James, 

However humble my opinion might be, I would like to point out one
serious flaw in what you said re.. timing of responses! Many folks
have the very sad misfortune of having an MS email system run by
people not unlike BG, need I say more?  I for instance could reply to
a thread containing just a question, no answers but when I look back
the next day, lo and behold there have been 8+ responses that I have
not seen.

Be that as it may, again being as humble as possible.... "THERE IS NO
SUCH THING AS A QUESTION THAT SHOULD NOT BE ASKED" no matter what the
venue. How many times have we all said this???? Sure some can be
annoying! but to the person doing the asking it is just as serious as
a heart attack. 

One other point, some places we find ourselves seem to be devoid of
anything that resembles books, this as either you our Simon pointed
out probably is the FM! and many times the information you need is not
where you might expect to find it.

_____________________________________________________________________
Howard Weatherly

hweatherly@dlis.dla.mil
howard.weatherly@ctg.com
hweath@ibm.net

X4324

 <<Re: Too many answer to simple questions>> 


Simon,

re: your two points

1) I too was very irritated by RPG 101 questions when I first joined
this list and would reply with a very terse
RTFM!  Then I learned that, for some, this list -is- the FM.  There
seems to be some shops that throw a bunch of
humans into a room, without manuals, lock the doors, shove pizza under
the door twice a day and say "don't come
out till it's done!"

Now having cut the poster some slack, I believe that the RPG/CL/DDS
101 questions would be more appropriate for
David's RPG list.  Maybe some feel that that list is -only- RPG and
maybe could be renamed to AS400 "bunny slope"
list? :-)  (more seriously, AS400-101 ... might be a good place for
those that feel the urge to mentor to do so)

2) I 10000% agree.  Funny thing, there have been times when a single
post evokes a single (correct) response and
other times 50% of the list jumps on the band wagon.  Go figure.  Just
this past week a poster asked for a method
for determining the program that caused a trigger program to be
called.  It just so happened that the previous
day I saw an article in News/400 called "CallerId" which did just
that.  I posted that piece of information and
was the -only- responder, yet the DLYJOB issue probably had 30+
respondents. Again, go figure.  I don't have any
solid solution to this beyond your recommendation.  I would hate to
place a burden on David to filter any
redundant postings after the first.  If we do not police ourselves, we
may lose contributors or hire a police
force.  Neither alternative is attractive to me.

Based upon the time of day for each DLYJOB posting (unless the senders
clock is all whacked) the last 80% of the
posters MUST have read the first 20% of the responses.

Finally, FWIW, here's what I do: when I read the original post for
solution, (under Netscape) I press the "Next"
button.  Once I have read a response, if correct then decide: keeper
or enter trash loop, else read next message
to see if original misguided response has been straightened out. If
not respond else enter trash loop.

(Personally, I've gotten the feeling that some people read the other
single sentence responses to some postings
then use that as a foundation to post their own three paragraph
response. Impressive, huh?)

BTW, it's now 7:30pm Pacific Time (Sunday Jan 10th) and there were
-no- existing reponses to your posting
provided to me by NWNexus.  Your post is timed a 3:45am.  Which I
assume to be "shrimp on the barbie" time.

James W. Kilgore
email@James-W-Kilgore.com
======================================================================
======

Simon Coulter wrote:

> Hello Jeffrey,
>
> I AGREE.  This topic has arisen in the past with no real resolution.
It is obvious from the question whether
> every man and his dog can answer it or whether it requires
specialised knowledge.  Most of these trivial
> questions can be answered by a proper read of the manuals.
>
> I would like to suggest two things:
>
> 1).  The Midrange Guidelines are updated to request that the list is
used when other avenues have been
> exhausted not as a point of first call.  I get the impression that
many appenders are too lazy to read the
> manuals 'cause it's quicker to fire off a message.
>
> 2).  Please do not answer questions, especially simple ones,
immediately.  Wait a day.  Read ALL the incoming
> mail first.  If it still hasn't been answered then reply.  And once
you do see an answer, don't continue the
> thread unless you have something useful to add.  Illuminate, don't
reiterate!
>
> Comments from David Gibbs would be appreciated since he is paying
for the wasted bandwidth.
>
> Regards,
> Simon Coulter.
>

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