Hello,
RTFM is a succinct and useful answer in many cases, yet somewhat
impolite. A not much more verbose verbose version of it, possibly still
more useful, and quite polite would be something like:
"Please, read rule #NN at http://www.r-project.org/posting-guide.html";
(asuming that paragraphs at the Posting Guide were numbered and number
NN would point to the paragraph "Do your homework before posting"):
* It includes the word "please".
* It increases awareness of the Posting Guide
* It provides a direct link to it.
* The information under such paragraph is very informative and helpful.
One of the purposes of the different R help lists should be serving as a
public relations platforms so as to promote the use of R.
Regards,
Carlos J. Gil Bellosta
http://www.datanalytics.com
On 08/21/2010 02:15 AM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
On 08/20/10 01:08 AM, Spencer Graves wrote:
What do you think about adding a "No RTFM" policy to the R mailing
lists? Per, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM":
The Ubuntu Forums and LinuxQuestions.org, for instance, have instituted
"no RTFM" policies to promote a welcoming atmosphere.[8][9].
RTFM [and] "Go look on google" are two inappropriate responses to a
question. If you don't know the answer or don't wish to help, please say
nothing instead of brushing off someone's question. Politely showing
someone how you searched or obtained the answer to a question is
acceptable, even encouraged.
...
If you wish to remind a user to use search tools or other resources when
they have asked a question you feel is basic or common, please be very
polite. Any replies for help that contain language disrespectful towards
the user asking the question, i.e. "STFU" or "RTFM" are unacceptable and
will not be tolerated. —Ubuntu Forums
Gavin Simpson and I recently provided examples answering a question from
"r.ookie" that had previously elicited responses, ""You want us to read
the help page to you?" and "It yet again appears that you are asking us
to read the help pages for you."
I can appreciate the sentiment in fortunes('rtfm'). In this case,
however, "r.ookie" had RTFM (and said so), but evidently the manual was
not sufficiently clear.
Best Wishes,
Spencer Graves
I've personally found the R community somewhat unhelpful at times. In
fact, of all the resources I use:
* Newsgroups like comp.unix.shell, sci.math.symbolic, comp.unix.aix,
comp.unix.solaris
* Mailing lists for autoconf, automake, gcc, sage maths, ecl, time-nuts.
* Forums for OpenSolaris
I've found the r-devel about the least helpful of the lot.
My most recent example was when I created a bug report about a version
of R that was about 4 months old. The bug was that the configure test
failed to detect the version of libicu was unsuitable on Solaris. (Since
it was the version of the library shipped with Solaris, I would
personally have thought the configure script should detect its too old
if it is).
When submitting the bug, I selected the particular R version from the
pull-down menu, as it was listed.
Then I got some snotty reply about reading the FAQ and not submitting
bug reports for old versions of R. At the time I submitted it, I suspect
the version I had was about 4 months old. Ask on a Solaris mailing list
about a 5 year old version of Solaris and you will get civil replies.
Likewise, the gcc lists don't expect everyone to be running very recent
versions.
I would have like to have responded on the technical content of the
message, as I believe the autoconf test is flawed if it can't detect
that a version of a library installed by Sun is unsuitable. But I
decided that such responses were best ignored.
There's quite a bit in the R manual about Solaris that is just plain
wrong, but although I've reported some of the problems, these were
ignored, so I can't even be bothered to report the rest.
I must admit, I do sometimes give people links to
http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/
when I think they are being particularly dumb in not using Google, so I
do appreciate it can get annoying when people ask questions they should
be able to get answered themselves.
But it seems to me that arrogance is more normal on r-devel than on
other lists I use.
Thankfully, I don't have to use r-devel much.
Flames to /dev/null.
Dave
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