I'm not watching the entire thread, so what I write below may seem a bit
out of context. On the other hand, this particular post shows some of
the few points I don't like about a stream of "RTFM" responses.
You seem to overvalue "ridicule", IMHO.
I was trying to illustrate the ridicule case rather than explicitly advocate
it, but perhaps I came across as being too strong of an advocate.
I'm assuming that the ridicule approach does work sometimes, personally I
think it worked for me to some extent.
There is also the silent-ridicule approach, where it is not necessary to
explicity ridicule the question bearer, under the assumption that the
question bearer will eventually become self-aware of what is ridiculous, and
hence self-ridicule and scutinise prior to posting. Clearly in some cases
the ridicule approach can be an effective primer for this state of mind.
The ridicule approach may not be the most effective primer. In many cases
the ridicule will result in an increase in frustration and possibly a
reduction in the users capacity to work the answer out for themselves.
I think, that really only questions, whose answers cannot readily be found
elsewhere, should be asked on this list.
Part of the question-bearers education, whether that be from the list, or
from other documentation, should result in the installation of the the
solve-it-yourself mindset in their head. So that they are more tentative in
their approach to asking questions, they should also become better problem
solvers and FreeBSD users as a consequence of having to think for
themselves.
Part of the FreeBSD education should consist of informing the user how they
can help themselves, and how they should seek help in the event that the
self-help fails. If that education scheme was effectively employed, perhaps
there wouldn't be as many "stupid" questions.
But then again, perhaps this is the education, the self-realisation of this
information without it explicitly being enumerated in some accesible form.
Cali
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