Re: Too many answer to simple questions -- MIDRANGE-L

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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