Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[andu]

--On Wednesday, August 06, 2003 14:40:35 +0800 Jason Wong 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On Wednesday 06 August 2003 14:35, John Manko wrote:

perhaps there should be two lists (novice and advanced), and the
advanced listed shouldn't
answer questions if it's considered trivial enough for the novice list
to answer.
On many lists you get this kind of suggestion. Almost always the rebuttal
is  that the people who are in a position to help would then mostly
congregate to  the 'advanced' list leaving the helpless to fend for
themselves on the  'beginners' list.
In other words its usually a BAD idea.
I guess a better idea is if you are on a list to help others to just do it 
not moralize them. Forgot how it is as a newbie, start learning a new 
language.

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Andu

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting - my take on it.

[Larry R. Sieting]

Hello,

First.. I have nothing to say right now about PHP programming... except I 
am learning it and like what I have learned so far.(background in several 
languages).

Second...  I just did a little query of my mail and found that out of 165 
messages received to day on this list alone, 41 of them were in regards to 
'stop neurotic posting'.

While I agree that more people should _try_ to read the manual and find 
other sources _as well as_ this list, I too get annoyed at all the simple 
requests.  I am sure that at some point I will post a message out here that 
is either not properly formed or I have a brain phade and cant find what I 
am looking for.



At 04:14 PM 8/6/2003 -0400, CPT John W. Holmes wrote:
From: "Gabriel Guzman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 11:44, Chris W. Parker wrote:
>
> > A bad answer would be:
> >
> > "RTFM http://php.net/preg_match";
> >
> > A good answer would be:
> >
> > "That can be done with a regular expression. The function you're looking
> > for is called preg_match. http://php.net/preg_match";
>
> I fail to see the difference.
Me too. Besides, both answers are wrong. You should use strpos().

---John Holmes...
Larry R. Sieting

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[John Manko]

I tend to think that PHP will take over the world
Just my $0.02.
Robert Cummings wrote:

Hitler began his conquest by taking a country here, a country there
while other countries sat around saying to each other oh he won't keep
doing it. Let's DO NOTHING! Obviously that plan was flawed -- and that
is what I was referring to -- not that by being quiet suddenly the world
will be plunged into war again (not that it isn't already).
Cheers,
Rob.
On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 17:11, Chris Sherwood wrote:
 

Hitler is it?

why is it everytime someone mentions a proper ettiquette, or some common
sense thing that it is immeadiately taken to an extreme..
is this reasonable behaviour? does it portray us as adults, maybe adults who
have a major chip on our shoulders... all I am saying is if you feel nasty
... keep it to yourself
now how does that equate to being like or bringing back hitler?

- Original Message -
From: "Robert Cummings" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Chris Sherwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 2:04 PM
Subject: Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting
   

On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 16:36, Chris Sherwood wrote:
 

or what does it take to actually give a reasonable answer... if I am
   

gonna
   

be rude I  wont say anything... doesnt any one remember their mother
   

telling
   

them if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all?

   

That kind of thinking leads to things like Hitler :| If we never say
anything then it becomes the norm for people to continue their
behaviour. Currently the question being debated is what constitutes poor
behaviour/etiquette within this mailing list. While I agree that this
forum is primarily for answering questions -- I disagree that it is for
answering silly little questions that would be common knowledge if the
asker had bothered to read any tutorials or documentation -- most
especially when it appears that the poster didn't even bother to do any
kind of searching for themselves. I mean really, questions like "does X
do Y" is often as simple as writing 1 to 5 lines of test code which is
probably shorter than the email itself and doesn't pollute the mailing
list with 5 to 10 replies of "yes" or "no".
Cheers,
Rob.
--
.-.
| Worlds of Carnage - http://www.wocmud.org   |
:-:
| Come visit a world of myth and legend where |
| fantastical creatures come to life and the  |
| stuff of nightmares grasp for your soul.|
`-'
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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[andu]

--On Wednesday, August 06, 2003 10:09:06 -0500 Jay Blanchard 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


neurotic

\Neu*rot"ic\, a. [Gr. ? nerve.] 1. Of or pertaining to the nerves;
seated in the nerves; nervous; as, a neurotic disease. 2. Uself in
disorders of, or affecting, the nerves.
I am being a smart-arse now, but I believe that dictionaries and Xanax
are in order for some of you. Get over it! RTFM, STFW, and STFA are NOT
PERSONAL ATTACKS! Those are reserved for off-list replies unless the
flame is warranted on list. Here we go ...
Neurotic as in having an inferiority complex and trying too hard to prove 
the contrary when given a chance.

Andu

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[daniel]

> This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
> people  are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning.
> Unfortunately  there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the
> manual' and other shit  like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such
> garbage day after day doesn't do  anybody any good even if the manual
> is  not being read as much as it should  be. Is it too difficult to not
> answer the post at all if you disagree with  the content?
>
>
> Andu
>
> --

good on you , i'm sick and tired of twats replying with i dont understand
your question or RTFM , i absolutely "hate" RTFM , the idea of the list is
to help eachother out and even post back to the list the completed code
someone was stuck on to share with everyone , if there is no decent asnwer
to reply with dont reply at all



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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Chris Sherwood]

Hitler is it?

why is it everytime someone mentions a proper ettiquette, or some common
sense thing that it is immeadiately taken to an extreme..

is this reasonable behaviour? does it portray us as adults, maybe adults who
have a major chip on our shoulders... all I am saying is if you feel nasty
... keep it to yourself

now how does that equate to being like or bringing back hitler?


- Original Message -
From: "Robert Cummings" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Chris Sherwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 2:04 PM
Subject: Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting


> On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 16:36, Chris Sherwood wrote:
> >
> > or what does it take to actually give a reasonable answer... if I am
gonna
> > be rude I  wont say anything... doesnt any one remember their mother
telling
> > them if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all?
> >
>
> That kind of thinking leads to things like Hitler :| If we never say
> anything then it becomes the norm for people to continue their
> behaviour. Currently the question being debated is what constitutes poor
> behaviour/etiquette within this mailing list. While I agree that this
> forum is primarily for answering questions -- I disagree that it is for
> answering silly little questions that would be common knowledge if the
> asker had bothered to read any tutorials or documentation -- most
> especially when it appears that the poster didn't even bother to do any
> kind of searching for themselves. I mean really, questions like "does X
> do Y" is often as simple as writing 1 to 5 lines of test code which is
> probably shorter than the email itself and doesn't pollute the mailing
> list with 5 to 10 replies of "yes" or "no".
>
> Cheers,
> Rob.
> --
> .-.
> | Worlds of Carnage - http://www.wocmud.org   |
> :-:
> | Come visit a world of myth and legend where |
> | fantastical creatures come to life and the  |
> | stuff of nightmares grasp for your soul.|
> `-'
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>
>


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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Step Schwarz]

Hi Amanda,

Yeah, terminology is definitely tough to get a handle on at the start -- it
was for me.  I tried a couple of different books but had no luck until I
picked up Larry Ullman's PHP Visual QuickStart Guide.  Then it all kind of
clicked into place.  I highly recommend it -- it's like a big index.  If you
have a question about databases, just turn to the database chapter and
chances are the answer will jump right out at you.  And I believe the retail
is only like $20.  The two books I tried before that were $50 each.

Now as for Google.. Google is about the best thing that ever happened to the
web.  Hone your Google skills a bit and you'll be amazed at how relevant
your search results can get.  Another great $20 book: Google Hacks!

And you're right: this list is a great resource.  I'd just like to see lower
volume and more posts about subjects which weren't covered just a few days
prior, you know?  You should have seen this list when "register_globals" was
switched off by default.. it got maddening.  I think a bunch of us are still
bitter. :)

Hope this helps, -Step

> I am definitely a novice, and I use the online manual, but a lot of times
> I won't even know what to search for, or I'll search for something and not
> find what I'm looking for, or I'll find what I think I'm looking for, then
> pour over some unclear examples and text and realize it's NOT what I'm
> looking for.
> 
> I love that I can shoot off a question while at work and get an answer
> quick.  It's too bad that my novice questions annoy people, but I'm just
> learning, and that's WHY I joined this list.  It's a resource, just like
> the manual.
> 
> And as for Google, I don't feel like I have time to wade through pages and
> pages of irrelevant links until I find what I'm looking for when I have a
> better resource right here.


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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Daryl Meese]

Ok,

John, I for one really appreciate the humor in your response ;>.  That being
said, my suggestions are as follows:

When a 'helper' comes across a post that they can answer or help with they
should scan their newer emails to see if this has already been done to their
satisfaction.  This practice is precisely why I have not posted very many
answers (other than limited knowledge ;)).

Maybe RTFM could be said in a slightly more kind manner.  For example (add
slight sarcasm where appropriate):

"Please refer to the php manual on the function "virtual" at the following
url php.net/virtual.  You may also find the answer to this question in our
list archives at .  (include any other sources you think may be
helpful) This list is very busy and those of us that monitor the list with
the intention of helping people that are having difficulties would greatly
appreciate it if you would consult these two sources before posting a
question in the future.  This practice usually gets you a more accurate
answer in less time and frees our time so we can use it to help people with
more difficult issues.

Thanks,   Your Name


For my part on at least one occassion I posted a question to the list after
reading the manual (which in that case was clear as mud) and got the "RTFM".
I was tempted to respond with IDRTFM  -  GFY.

Daryl


-Original Message-
From: John W. Holmes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 11:39 PM
To: andu
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting


andu wrote:

> This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
> people are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning.
> Unfortunately there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the
> manual' and other shit like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage
> day after day doesn't do anybody any good even if the manual is  not
> being read as much as it should be. Is it too difficult to not answer
> the post at all if you disagree with the content?

Please search the archives... this argument has been made before.

--
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Amazon Wishlist: www.amazon.com/o/registry/3BEXC84AB3A5E/

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Curt Zirzow]

Ok.. one last comment. Or rather idea...  

Perhaps we should set up a php-helpers list so discussions like
these don't get mixed up with what this discussion list is about.

if you think this might work, please please email me (off-list) and I'll start
making things happen.


Curt
-- 
"I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure."

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Amanda McComb]

I am definitely a novice, and I use the online manual, but a lot of times
I won't even know what to search for, or I'll search for something and not
find what I'm looking for, or I'll find what I think I'm looking for, then
pour over some unclear examples and text and realize it's NOT what I'm
looking for.
 
I love that I can shoot off a question while at work and get an answer
quick.  It's too bad that my novice questions annoy people, but I'm just
learning, and that's WHY I joined this list.  It's a resource, just like
the manual.

And as for Google, I don't feel like I have time to wade through pages and
pages of irrelevant links until I find what I'm looking for when I have a
better resource right here.

On Wed, 6 Aug 2003, Step Schwarz wrote:

> The manual (especially user comments) and Google are invaluable to me as a
> PHP coder.  As fast as this list is to respond to a very basic question, the
> manual and Google are faster.  And more in-depth.  So no offense but the
> replies you consider to be neurotic I consider to be helpful.  -Step
> 
> > This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most people
> > are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. Unfortunately
> > there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the manual' and other shit
> > like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage day after day doesn't do
> > anybody any good even if the manual is  not being read as much as it should
> > be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree with
> > the content?
> > 
> > 
> > Andu
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 


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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[andu]

--On Wednesday, August 06, 2003 06:26:34 + Curt Zirzow 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

* Thus wrote andu ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
people  are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning.
Unfortunately  there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the
manual' and other shit  like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such
garbage day after day doesn't do  anybody any good even if the manual is
not being read as much as it should


Yes it is a busy list, I have 1000+ messages for 7 days worth.

I'm not sure the noisyness of the list is entirely on the ones that
are helping.  There does seem to be a problem of people posting
questions that are plain as day in the manual, or have been
repeatedly answered here on the list (thus the joke, has it been 4
days already, being so funny :)
Agreed.

if more people would read the manual or know how to find commonly
asked and solved quetions this list would probaly drop in 20% (very
rough estimate) of posts.  Getting that information to the people
who arn't reading the manual is a difficult task, cause if they
arn't reading the manual, why would they even bother with reading
the information on how to find the answer.
Now noisyness from the 'helpers'...  I have noticed at times that a
question is answered the same way like 10 times by 10 different
people; this I consider more noisy than a RTFM post.
Agreed again.



be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree
with  the content?
Now, I kinda wondered at first if I should not respond to this
cause it's rather in a disagreement tone :)
Nevermind the tone, you have a point. My post was about people who 
chronically answer with an attitude (half of their posts have to do with 
the manual). As far as I can tell you always take the time to help, I'm 
surprised you picked on this.
People are sometimes lazy or simply they just don't know what to look for, 
to look up a function you must know the name of it, what's the big deal to 
reply with a function name as opposed to RTFM, you do it anyway. I'll tell 
you what the difference is, you are bored to death for hearing the same 
question for the millionth time and feel vindictive. You're shooting the 
messenger though. If you are at the point where you can't deal with newbies 
it's understandable (been there, done that), but it's not their fault.

I think this shouldn't be considered a bad thing to do.  If you
find something you disagree with and have (legit) arguments, I
would insist that the person reply to it. Of course this only helps
if it was in a constructive manor, which I hope this reply was
done.
Cheers,

Curt
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Andu

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Robert Cummings]

Hitler began his conquest by taking a country here, a country there
while other countries sat around saying to each other oh he won't keep
doing it. Let's DO NOTHING! Obviously that plan was flawed -- and that
is what I was referring to -- not that by being quiet suddenly the world
will be plunged into war again (not that it isn't already).

Cheers,
Rob.

On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 17:11, Chris Sherwood wrote:
> Hitler is it?
> 
> why is it everytime someone mentions a proper ettiquette, or some common
> sense thing that it is immeadiately taken to an extreme..
> 
> is this reasonable behaviour? does it portray us as adults, maybe adults who
> have a major chip on our shoulders... all I am saying is if you feel nasty
> ... keep it to yourself
> 
> now how does that equate to being like or bringing back hitler?
> 
> 
> - Original Message -
> From: "Robert Cummings" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Chris Sherwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 2:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting
> 
> 
> > On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 16:36, Chris Sherwood wrote:
> > >
> > > or what does it take to actually give a reasonable answer... if I am
> gonna
> > > be rude I  wont say anything... doesnt any one remember their mother
> telling
> > > them if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all?
> > >
> >
> > That kind of thinking leads to things like Hitler :| If we never say
> > anything then it becomes the norm for people to continue their
> > behaviour. Currently the question being debated is what constitutes poor
> > behaviour/etiquette within this mailing list. While I agree that this
> > forum is primarily for answering questions -- I disagree that it is for
> > answering silly little questions that would be common knowledge if the
> > asker had bothered to read any tutorials or documentation -- most
> > especially when it appears that the poster didn't even bother to do any
> > kind of searching for themselves. I mean really, questions like "does X
> > do Y" is often as simple as writing 1 to 5 lines of test code which is
> > probably shorter than the email itself and doesn't pollute the mailing
> > list with 5 to 10 replies of "yes" or "no".
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Rob.
> > --
> > .-.
> > | Worlds of Carnage - http://www.wocmud.org   |
> > :-:
> > | Come visit a world of myth and legend where |
> > | fantastical creatures come to life and the  |
> > | stuff of nightmares grasp for your soul.|
> > `-'
> >
> > --
> > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
> >
> >
> 
> 
-- 
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:-:
| Come visit a world of myth and legend where |
| fantastical creatures come to life and the  |
| stuff of nightmares grasp for your soul.|
`-'

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[CPT John W. Holmes]

From: "Gabriel Guzman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 11:44, Chris W. Parker wrote:
>
> > A bad answer would be:
> >
> > "RTFM http://php.net/preg_match";
> >
> > A good answer would be:
> >
> > "That can be done with a regular expression. The function you're looking
> > for is called preg_match. http://php.net/preg_match";
>
> I fail to see the difference.

Me too. Besides, both answers are wrong. You should use strpos().

---John Holmes...


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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Jason Wong]

On Wednesday 06 August 2003 14:35, John Manko wrote:

> perhaps there should be two lists (novice and advanced), and the
> advanced listed shouldn't
> answer questions if it's considered trivial enough for the novice list
> to answer.

On many lists you get this kind of suggestion. Almost always the rebuttal is 
that the people who are in a position to help would then mostly congregate to 
the 'advanced' list leaving the helpless to fend for themselves on the 
'beginners' list. 

In other words its usually a BAD idea.

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[andu]

--On Wednesday, August 06, 2003 12:04:57 -0400 Step Schwarz 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Hi Amanda,

Yeah, terminology is definitely tough to get a handle on at the start --
it was for me.  I tried a couple of different books but had no luck until
I picked up Larry Ullman's PHP Visual QuickStart Guide.  Then it all kind
of clicked into place.  I highly recommend it -- it's like a big index.
If you have a question about databases, just turn to the database chapter
and chances are the answer will jump right out at you.  And I believe the
retail is only like $20.  The two books I tried before that were $50 each.
Talking about books, I highly recommend 'PHP and MySql Web Development' by 
Luke Welling and Laura Thomson second edition. Best thing about it is it 
has a number of 'useful' projects which are very well taken apart and 
explained.
It comes with a cd containing scripts for each chapter/example in the book.

Andu

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Juan Nin]

This kind of opiniion wars appear every since in many of the lists I'm
subscribed to.

The thing is that they ussually tend to nothing, since there are always
people who think on one way, and otehrs who think the other, and no matter
what you say, they will continue thinking that way.

I agree that there are too many lazy people who just ask "Can you tell me
how to do this?" whit subjects sucha as "PLEAS HELPPP!!!", that
didn't bother to RTFM or STFW.

Maybe some understood with this postings what we meant about it, and maybe
others didn't, or don't want to, or just think different...

But the thing is that this thread is getting larger and larger, and it's
even worse than baring with stupid questions...
No matter what we do or say, there will always be people whjo will not
bother to RTFM, or who are newbies and don't know how to search for things,
or who just subscribed to the list and didn't read recent related postings
and didn't bother to STFW or don't know how to do it...

So, regardless of what we think, we have no other option than try to educate
and point people to the right direction telling them who to do things in
good manners. I've replied more than one RTFM or STFW, and many times per
day I desire to do it All those sometimes stupid questions, consume your
bandwidth and time, but this wars are worst...

So I think we should try to educate, and if those messages bother us, and we
don't want to educate, then maybe it's better to try to ignore them and just
not reply to them... and let anyone who doesn't mind in wasting his/her time
reply... but this person should also try to educate and not just provide
code to the one who says "please tell me exavctly how to do this". Many of
us have little time to investigate sometimes, but you have to do it, it's
your job to do it. And if you are not a programmer and don't know how to do
it, then you should not be programming, hire someone to do it...

So please, we should cut off with this thread, since it will lead to
nothing, and let's try to educate!!!  :)

Interesting link:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

and Google seraching for "netiquette"

Regards,

Juan


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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Gabriel Guzman]

On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 11:44, Chris W. Parker wrote:

> A bad answer would be:
> 
> "RTFM http://php.net/preg_match";
> 
> A good answer would be:
> 
> "That can be done with a regular expression. The function you're looking
> for is called preg_match. http://php.net/preg_match";

I fail to see the difference.  



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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Curt Zirzow]

* Thus wrote andu ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most people 
> are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. Unfortunately 
> there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the manual' and other shit 
> like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage day after day doesn't do 
> anybody any good even if the manual is  not being read as much as it should 


Yes it is a busy list, I have 1000+ messages for 7 days worth.  

I'm not sure the noisyness of the list is entirely on the ones that
are helping.  There does seem to be a problem of people posting
questions that are plain as day in the manual, or have been
repeatedly answered here on the list (thus the joke, has it been 4
days already, being so funny :)  

if more people would read the manual or know how to find commonly
asked and solved quetions this list would probaly drop in 20% (very
rough estimate) of posts.  Getting that information to the people
who arn't reading the manual is a difficult task, cause if they
arn't reading the manual, why would they even bother with reading
the information on how to find the answer.

Now noisyness from the 'helpers'...  I have noticed at times that a
question is answered the same way like 10 times by 10 different
people; this I consider more noisy than a RTFM post.


> be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree with 
> the content?

Now, I kinda wondered at first if I should not respond to this
cause it's rather in a disagreement tone :)  

I think this shouldn't be considered a bad thing to do.  If you
find something you disagree with and have (legit) arguments, I
would insist that the person reply to it. Of course this only helps
if it was in a constructive manor, which I hope this reply was
done.


Cheers,

Curt
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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[John Manko]

I've only been php coding for less than 2 months.  I learn, learn, 
learn, only ask questions
when research turns up nothing, and answer other's questions when I know 
the answer. 

andu wrote:



--On Wednesday, August 06, 2003 14:40:35 +0800 Jason Wong 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On Wednesday 06 August 2003 14:35, John Manko wrote:

perhaps there should be two lists (novice and advanced), and the
advanced listed shouldn't
answer questions if it's considered trivial enough for the novice list
to answer.


On many lists you get this kind of suggestion. Almost always the 
rebuttal
is  that the people who are in a position to help would then mostly
congregate to  the 'advanced' list leaving the helpless to fend for
themselves on the  'beginners' list.

In other words its usually a BAD idea.


I guess a better idea is if you are on a list to help others to just 
do it not moralize them. Forgot how it is as a newbie, start learning 
a new language.

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Andu



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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Pupeno]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Wednesday 06 August 2003 03:40, Jason Wong wrote:
> On Wednesday 06 August 2003 14:35, John Manko wrote:
> > perhaps there should be two lists (novice and advanced), and the
> > advanced listed shouldn't
> > answer questions if it's considered trivial enough for the novice list
> > to answer.
>
> On many lists you get this kind of suggestion. Almost always the rebuttal
> is that the people who are in a position to help would then mostly
> congregate to the 'advanced' list leaving the helpless to fend for
> themselves on the 'beginners' list.
>
> In other words its usually a BAD idea.

Another thing that can be done, maybe, is create specific list like:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
as they're needed.

Thank you.

- -- 
Pupeno: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pupeno.com
- ---
Help the hungry children of Argentina,
please go to (and make it your homepage):
http://www.porloschicos.com/servlet/PorLosChicos?comando=donar
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iD8DBQE/MLi2Lr8z5XzmSDQRAhnQAJ9ndVFldDRZ8TrY8RLd7PVT2v6YFACeM2/B
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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[andu]

--On Wednesday, August 06, 2003 00:39:13 -0400 "John W. Holmes" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

andu wrote:

This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
people are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning.
Unfortunately there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the
manual' and other shit like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage
day after day doesn't do anybody any good even if the manual is  not
being read as much as it should be. Is it too difficult to not answer
the post at all if you disagree with the content?
Please search the archives... this argument has been made before.
Not surprising, bad habits are hard to rid of. Hopefully if the interested 
parties are reminded once in a while it might stick.

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[daniel]

what a silly elitist view you have

> perhaps there should be two lists (novice and advanced), and the
> advanced listed shouldn't
> answer questions if it's considered trivial enough for the novice list
> to answer.
>
>
>
> Curt Zirzow wrote:
>
>>* Thus wrote andu ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
>>
>>
>>>This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
>>>people  are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning.
>>>Unfortunately  there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the
>>>manual' and other shit  like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such
>>>garbage day after day doesn't do  anybody any good even if the manual
>>>is  not being read as much as it should
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>Yes it is a busy list, I have 1000+ messages for 7 days worth.
>>
>>I'm not sure the noisyness of the list is entirely on the ones that are
>>helping.  There does seem to be a problem of people posting
>>questions that are plain as day in the manual, or have been
>>repeatedly answered here on the list (thus the joke, has it been 4 days
>>already, being so funny :)
>>
>>if more people would read the manual or know how to find commonly asked
>>and solved quetions this list would probaly drop in 20% (very rough
>>estimate) of posts.  Getting that information to the people who arn't
>>reading the manual is a difficult task, cause if they
>>arn't reading the manual, why would they even bother with reading the
>>information on how to find the answer.
>>
>>Now noisyness from the 'helpers'...  I have noticed at times that a
>>question is answered the same way like 10 times by 10 different
>>people; this I consider more noisy than a RTFM post.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree
>>>with  the content?
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Now, I kinda wondered at first if I should not respond to this
>>cause it's rather in a disagreement tone :)
>>
>>I think this shouldn't be considered a bad thing to do.  If you
>>find something you disagree with and have (legit) arguments, I
>>would insist that the person reply to it. Of course this only helps if
>>it was in a constructive manor, which I hope this reply was
>>done.
>>
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
>>Curt
>>
>>
>
>
>
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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Miles Thompson]

At 02:54 AM 8/6/2003 -0400, andu wrote:


if more people would read the manual or know how to find commonly
asked and solved quetions this list would probaly drop in 20% (very
rough estimate) of posts.  Getting that information to the people
who arn't reading the manual is a difficult task, cause if they
arn't reading the manual, why would they even bother with reading
the information on how to find the answer.
Now noisyness from the 'helpers'...  I have noticed at times that a
question is answered the same way like 10 times by 10 different
people; this I consider more noisy than a RTFM post.
Agreed again.



be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree
with  the content?
Now, I kinda wondered at first if I should not respond to this
cause it's rather in a disagreement tone :)
Nevermind the tone, you have a point. My post was about people who 
chronically answer with an attitude (half of their posts have to do with 
the manual). As far as I can tell you always take the time to help, I'm 
surprised you picked on this.
People are sometimes lazy or simply they just don't know what to look for, 
to look up a function you must know the name of it, what's the big deal to 
reply with a function name as opposed to RTFM, you do it anyway. I'll tell 
you what the difference is, you are bored to death for hearing the same 
question for the millionth time and feel vindictive. You're shooting the 
messenger though. If you are at the point where you can't deal with 
newbies it's understandable (been there, done that), but it's not their fault.


I understand the RTFM attitude, because in many cases the tone of the 
question shows that the manual HAS NOT been read. Or that some basic 
thought was put into what is being attempted. I also think a lot of people 
are coming to PHP without programming or database experience. They have 
either heard that PHP is "cool", or have gotten dumped into it by starting 
to use a packaged applcation, like Community Calendar. Consider how many 
requests have we had on the list for a "Visual Editor" for PHP.

If you are going to use MySQL, it is reasonable to expect that the person 
does some command line work with MySQL, finds out how common commands work, 
becomes familiar with MySQL's searchable on-line manual, etc.

It logically follows that the next step is to become familiar with the 
MySQL portion of the PHP manual, and by extension how arrays work in PHP.

There are also debugging procedures to follow: display the error message, 
echo the problem statement, simplify, divide and conquer, etc.

THEN come to this list, and you know what the question is and how to ask 
it. (And can be corrected, as I was once with a basic syntax error when a 
while loop wasn't working - something about a misplaced ";")

Problems then become a lot easier to solve - and let's face it, most of 
them are pretty simple; we've tended to create a too-complex environment.

I'll shut up now.

Miles

PS Maybe we should refer everyone to Steve Litt's www.troubleshooters.com 
for a read through on his troubleshooting process. /mt

 

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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Robert Cummings]

Your example is ridiculous -- it looks like you want a search egnine to
properly phrase the question for you.

This works and is more concise and clear: php find a string in a string

Really, I don't think people should be using the mailing list in lieu of
purchasing a book on PHP or reading one of the many online tutorials.
After you've acquainted yourself with the language, the syntax, and some
coding style (I hate the "anyone see what's wrong with this [insert your
favourite piece of self coded 1000 character long mess here]), then by
all means ask questions which are troubling to you. I rarely answer
questions anymore because I find that many people want the coders on the
PHP mailing list to do their work for them because they're too lazy to
bother doing some research. Also to get back to the problem of wording
queries wrong in google or whatever -- maybe trying a fwe different
queries would help. Anyways this is all just my humble opinion.

Cheers,
Rob.


On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 14:44, Chris W. Parker wrote:
> Jennifer Goodie 
> on Wednesday, August 06, 2003 11:27 AM said:
> 
> >> and in any event they're often things I
> >> wouldn't have thought about looking up anyway.
> > 
> > 
> > I love how the argument for not doing research is not having the
> > time/not wanting to waste time.  That is just lazy and selfish.
> 
> I totally agree with you on the time factor. The answerers time (for
> lack of a better word) is more important than the questioners time
> (again, for lack of a better word).
> 
> But I think a good point that the above quote contains is "in any event
> they're often things I wouldn't have thought about looking up anyway".
> 
> I find that, although I know my question is rudimentary, I don't even
> know how to search for it on google or in the archives. I don't know
> what a function is called, or what it /might/ be called and therefore my
> only recourse is to describe what I'm thinking (or trying/wanting to do)
> to another human being that can better interpret my question than google
> or the archives can.
> 
> I'll even search groups.google.com by asking my question in as few words
> as possible. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't, and mainly
> because people don't always ask the same question the same way.
> 
> Here's an example...
> 
> "How do I return a string based on certain criteria? For example I've
> got the string 'magical mystery tour' and I want to return the word
> 'myst' if it's found within the original string."
> 
> A bad answer would be:
> 
> "RTFM http://php.net/preg_match";
> 
> A good answer would be:
> 
> "That can be done with a regular expression. The function you're looking
> for is called preg_match. http://php.net/preg_match";
> 
> 
> And guess what, I pasted that question into google and it gave me not
> one good result. It did tell me how the Rio works though.
> 
> 
> My .02
> 
> Chris.
> 
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> 

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[andu]

--On Wednesday, August 06, 2003 14:38:11 +0800 Jason Wong 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On Wednesday 06 August 2003 14:26, Curt Zirzow wrote:

Now noisyness from the 'helpers'...  I have noticed at times that a
question is answered the same way like 10 times by 10 different
people; this I consider more noisy than a RTFM post.
And what I find really annoying is that some helpers being really
'helpful'  copy and paste whole chunks from the manual.
Read the subject again.

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Andu

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[John Manko]

hardly.  I've answered questions on this list that I thought the answer 
could be easily found on google or php.net.  Even more so, there are 
questions on this list that are CLEARLY "this is what I need, can you 
give me code."  That is silly.  What people should be asking is, "I 
can't find the answer to this question, can you point me in the right 
direction."  That doesn't happen, however.  Are you a developer, or 
not?  Learn, figure it out, ask for guidance, but don't ask for someone 
to answer question like "give me code" or "i have this idea, will it 
work, even though i didn't bother to even test or research it."  I'm 
sorry, but I have no pity for the lazy.  There is a difference between 
someone who is new looking for direction to the answer and someone who 
relies on this list to "simply provide it" without them doing any work 
themselves.  So, go ahead and call me an elitist.  That's fine.  I'll 
just continue to Read The Fucking Manual. 

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

what a silly elitist view you have

 

perhaps there should be two lists (novice and advanced), and the
advanced listed shouldn't
answer questions if it's considered trivial enough for the novice list
to answer.


Curt Zirzow wrote:

   

* Thus wrote andu ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):

 

This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
people  are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning.
Unfortunately  there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the
manual' and other shit  like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such
garbage day after day doesn't do  anybody any good even if the manual
is  not being read as much as it should
   

Yes it is a busy list, I have 1000+ messages for 7 days worth.

I'm not sure the noisyness of the list is entirely on the ones that are
helping.  There does seem to be a problem of people posting
questions that are plain as day in the manual, or have been
repeatedly answered here on the list (thus the joke, has it been 4 days
already, being so funny :)
if more people would read the manual or know how to find commonly asked
and solved quetions this list would probaly drop in 20% (very rough
estimate) of posts.  Getting that information to the people who arn't
reading the manual is a difficult task, cause if they
arn't reading the manual, why would they even bother with reading the
information on how to find the answer.
Now noisyness from the 'helpers'...  I have noticed at times that a
question is answered the same way like 10 times by 10 different
people; this I consider more noisy than a RTFM post.


 

be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree
with  the content?
   

Now, I kinda wondered at first if I should not respond to this
cause it's rather in a disagreement tone :)
I think this shouldn't be considered a bad thing to do.  If you
find something you disagree with and have (legit) arguments, I
would insist that the person reply to it. Of course this only helps if
it was in a constructive manor, which I hope this reply was
done.
Cheers,

Curt

 

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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Robert Cummings]

On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 15:45, Chris W. Parker wrote:
> 
> The reason I noted google didn't know what the heck I was talking about
> was because we're assuming the person asking the question (who btw is
> not me) wouldn't be able to come up with "php find a string in a
> string". That's the whole point! It's not that the person is lazy or
> stupid, it's that the person DOESN'T KNOW HOW to ask the question

As I stated already, they'd know how to ask the question if they
bothered to read a tutorial or a book -- maybe we should have a
different mailing list such as:

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

or maybe

[EMAIL PROTECTED]


> 
> u r such teh 1337 h4x0r. thx 4 playing!

Thanks... moron!

Cheers,
Rob.
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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Lucas Lain]

Please ... put in the Subject --> [OFF-TOPIC] ... i don't want to see this stupid 
discussion ... 
Thanks



On Wed, 6 Aug 2003 13:36:42 -0700
"Chris Sherwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> well I have been watching this post all morning and now into the afternoon..
> 
> personally I think there is differences in responses and well there are
> definite persons with an elitist attitude, some of these people are
> newbies... under immense amounts of pressure to pull something off... what
> does it cost to type strpos()?
> 
> or what does it take to actually give a reasonable answer... if I am gonna
> be rude I  wont say anything... doesnt any one remember their mother telling
> them if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all?
> 
> anyways lets let this topic drop and get back to what we all do best and
> thats coding..
> 
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
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> 


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[EMAIL PROTECTED]
# /Scripting/Manager (??) && /Obscure/Commander

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[daniel]

obviously our asp windoze counterparts look over us as inferior, but i dont
see it that way, but how about java , looking into the future how inferior
or superior comparing php and java ?

> I tend to think that PHP will take over the world
> Just my $0.02.
>
>
> Robert Cummings wrote:
>
>>Hitler began his conquest by taking a country here, a country there
>>while other countries sat around saying to each other oh he won't keep
>>doing it. Let's DO NOTHING! Obviously that plan was flawed -- and that
>>is what I was referring to -- not that by being quiet suddenly the
>>world will be plunged into war again (not that it isn't already).
>>
>>Cheers,
>>Rob.
>>
>>On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 17:11, Chris Sherwood wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hitler is it?
>>>
>>>why is it everytime someone mentions a proper ettiquette, or some
>>>common sense thing that it is immeadiately taken to an extreme..
>>>
>>>is this reasonable behaviour? does it portray us as adults, maybe
>>>adults who have a major chip on our shoulders... all I am saying is if
>>>you feel nasty ... keep it to yourself
>>>
>>>now how does that equate to being like or bringing back hitler?
>>>
>>>
>>>- Original Message -
>>>From: "Robert Cummings" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>To: "Chris Sherwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 2:04 PM
>>>Subject: Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 16:36, Chris Sherwood wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>or what does it take to actually give a reasonable answer... if I am
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>gonna
>>>
>>>
>>>>>be rude I  wont say anything... doesnt any one remember their mother
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>telling
>>>
>>>
>>>>>them if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>That kind of thinking leads to things like Hitler :| If we never say
>>>>anything then it becomes the norm for people to continue their
>>>>behaviour. Currently the question being debated is what constitutes
>>>>poor behaviour/etiquette within this mailing list. While I agree that
>>>>this forum is primarily for answering questions -- I disagree that it
>>>>is for answering silly little questions that would be common
>>>>knowledge if the asker had bothered to read any tutorials or
>>>>documentation -- most especially when it appears that the poster
>>>>didn't even bother to do any kind of searching for themselves. I mean
>>>>really, questions like "does X do Y" is often as simple as writing 1
>>>>to 5 lines of test code which is probably shorter than the email
>>>>itself and doesn't pollute the mailing list with 5 to 10 replies of
>>>>"yes" or "no".
>>>>
>>>>Cheers,
>>>>Rob.
>>>>--
>>>>.-.
>>>>| Worlds of Carnage - http://www.wocmud.org   |
>>>>:-:
>>>>| Come visit a world of myth and legend where |
>>>>| fantastical creatures come to life and the  |
>>>>| stuff of nightmares grasp for your soul.|
>>>>`-'
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Ralph Guzman]

This will help:

http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

This has got to be the longest thread I've seen.

-Original Message-
From: andu [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 9:32 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
people 
are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. Unfortunately 
there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the manual' and other
shit 
like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage day after day doesn't
do 
anybody any good even if the manual is  not being read as much as it
should 
be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree
with 
the content?


Andu

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Step Schwarz]

The manual (especially user comments) and Google are invaluable to me as a
PHP coder.  As fast as this list is to respond to a very basic question, the
manual and Google are faster.  And more in-depth.  So no offense but the
replies you consider to be neurotic I consider to be helpful.  -Step

> This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most people
> are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. Unfortunately
> there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the manual' and other shit
> like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage day after day doesn't do
> anybody any good even if the manual is  not being read as much as it should
> be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree with
> the content?
> 
> 
> Andu


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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[daniel]

>
> Calling someone a twat is not going to persuade anybody to change
> how you think a proper reply should be.
>
> If I dont understand someone's question, should I not let them know
> that if that make themselves a little clearer a better answer may
> be given instead of 12 people shooting in the dark giving answers
> to problems that are not the issue the person is having?
>

ok apologies i went a bit far there , but you know what i mean , it terms
of a wasted post he/she should say that offlist i reckon then the poster
can problem reverify him/her self with a better question.

but i've had stuff like i dont understand anything u just said , something
on those lines , maybe something like can you please rephrase your question
might be better.

>
> : skips comment on RTFM :)
>
> Yes the list is about helping people out, but we (those who help
> people) arn't here to write someone elses code.  If and when that
> is done people become too lazy and rely on the list to have their
> problems solved, instead of the user doing research himself to
> find out if this is a common problem.
>

i dont think in particular this is what the list is about and i am not
implying this , i usually head str8 to php.net then to google then to the
list, most of my issues that i ask are regex related and even then, i dont
get an exact answer it merely leads me into the right direction where i can
modify the example to do what i need it to do

> Like for example, when people are asking for examples a simple
> google search for '' example', usually results with
> some good examples.

yeh ok we've had stuff like 'is there a script out there that does this', a
trip to hotscripts first should have helped them out , but from the time
i've started here i dont think there has been any guidelines set on this ,
and even then , i dont think ppl will read them :\




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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Jason Wong]

On Wednesday 06 August 2003 13:41, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> good on you , i'm sick and tired of twats replying with i dont understand
> your question or RTFM , i absolutely "hate" RTFM , the idea of the list is
> to help eachother out and even post back to the list the completed code
> someone was stuck on to share with everyone , if there is no decent asnwer
> to reply with dont reply at all

The list is to help people out AFTER they have made reasonable efforts to 
resolve their problems themselves. Resonable efforts includes (but not 
limited to):

- RTFM, download a copy for quick reference, for more info refer to the online 
manual and its user notes (or download the Windows Help version)

- Search the list archives

- Google


And when posting questions, if people can (at the very least) state:

- succinctly what they're trying to achieve
- what they have tried that (presumably) didn't work, and HOW it didn't work 
(error messages etc)

it would make it easier to get a better response.

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Nicholas Robinson]

I don't have time for speculative research and I'm not going to apologise for 
it.

By answering a few queries of a technical nature, helpfully and constructively 
without recourse to rude TLA's and FL:A's  (and not having to defend my modus 
operandi), I feel I earn the odd tasty morsel lobbed in my direction.

On Wednesday 06 Aug 2003 7:27 pm, Jennifer Goodie wrote:
> Not to beat a dead horse, but...
>
> From two separate responses:
> > And as for Google, I don't feel like I have time to wade through pages
> > and pages of irrelevant links until I find what I'm looking for when I
> > have a better resource right here.
> >
> >
> >
> > I've actually learned quite a few useful things from questions in
> > the past
> > couple of weeks since I joined this list that have obviously reappeared
> > several times. Now, I could spend hours trawling the archives to see if
> > there's anything of interest, but I don't really have the time -
> > and in any
> > event they're often things I wouldn't have thought about looking
> > up anyway.
>
> I love how the argument for not doing research is not having the time/not
> wanting to waste time.  That is just lazy and selfish.  Since you don't
> want to waste your time looking, it is perfectly acceptable for everyone
> else to waste time reading a question that's been posted 80 times in the
> last month, and possibly waste more time typing up the same answer that has
> probably been posted 80+ times.  How is your time more important or
> valuable than everyone else's?
>
> This is not a personal attack on the two posters quoted, just my feelings
> on that general attitude.


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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[CPT John W. Holmes]

Honestly, if you people ignored the stupid responses as much as you want us
to ignore the stupid questions... we wouldn't be having this "discussion".

---John Holmes...

- Original Message - 
From: "Nicholas Robinson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "andu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting


Andu's right. I've left several lists in the past, not because of people
listing questions where they should have read the manual first, but because
I
couldn't stand the sad b**ds who get their kicks by belittling people
with less knowledge but more manners than themselves.

I've actually learned quite a few useful things from questions in the past
couple of weeks since I joined this list that have obviously reappeared
several times. Now, I could spend hours trawling the archives to see if
there's anything of interest, but I don't really have the time - and in any
event they're often things I wouldn't have thought about looking up anyway.

So, keep the questions coming.

Nick

On Wednesday 06 Aug 2003 5:31 am, andu wrote:
> This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most people
> are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. Unfortunately
> there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the manual' and other shit
> like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage day after day doesn't do
> anybody any good even if the manual is  not being read as much as it
should
> be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree with
> the content?
>
>
> Andu


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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Nicholas Robinson]

Andu's right. I've left several lists in the past, not because of people 
listing questions where they should have read the manual first, but because I 
couldn't stand the sad b**ds who get their kicks by belittling people 
with less knowledge but more manners than themselves.

I've actually learned quite a few useful things from questions in the past 
couple of weeks since I joined this list that have obviously reappeared 
several times. Now, I could spend hours trawling the archives to see if 
there's anything of interest, but I don't really have the time - and in any 
event they're often things I wouldn't have thought about looking up anyway.

So, keep the questions coming.

Nick

On Wednesday 06 Aug 2003 5:31 am, andu wrote:
> This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most people
> are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. Unfortunately
> there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the manual' and other shit
> like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage day after day doesn't do
> anybody any good even if the manual is  not being read as much as it should
> be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree with
> the content?
>
>
> Andu


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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Chris W. Parker]

John Manko 
on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 11:36 PM said:

> perhaps there should be two lists (novice and advanced), and the
> advanced listed shouldn't answer questions if it's considered
> trivial enough for the novice list to answer.

w00t! w00t!

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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Jay Blanchard]

[snip]
I love that I can shoot off a question while at work and get an answer
quick.  It's too bad that my novice questions annoy people, but I'm just
learning, and that's WHY I joined this list.  It's a resource, just like
the manual.
[/snip]

Generally you present a well thought out question due to your previous
research though. It is those questions, generally, that get asked over
and over (usually within days of each other) that end up with the terse
replies...

"How can I upload pictures with PHP?"
"How can I include attements with mail()"
[In the subject line] "HELP ME!"
"How come my form will not pass variables?"
"Register_Globals ?!? "
"Is there a function to ... [insert thought here]?"

If anyone says "I have RTFM and STFW, but I don't understand [now append
one of the above]...", they generally receive the help that they are
looking for.


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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Curt Zirzow]

* Thus wrote Lucas Lain ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> Please ... put in the Subject --> [OFF-TOPIC] ... i don't want to see this stupid 
> discussion ... 

Hardly OT IMO. It is a discussion on methodolgy of helping people,
and some good issued have been addressed, constructive and
destructive.

If the thread was read in whole... part of the issue that was
brought up is replies like yours. If the topic is that displeasing
just ignore it or dump them all to /dev/null

Curt
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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Jay Blanchard]

[snip]
This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
people 
are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. Unfortunately 
there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the manual' and other
shit 
like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage day after day doesn't
do 
anybody any good even if the manual is  not being read as much as it
should 
be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree
with 
the content?
[/snip]

I know that this has circulated, but RTFA (toungue-firmly-in-cheeck)
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

My suggestion, quit posting "shit like this" when it has been covered
dozens of times. Talk about "noise". Look how many replies this thread
generated. Looks very much to me like you are
http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame29.html I know I use RTFM, STFW,
and STFA a lot, but when the poster makes it apparent that they have
done no research it is an expected and acceptable answer. 

HTH!

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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Jennifer Goodie]

Not to beat a dead horse, but...

>From two separate responses:

> And as for Google, I don't feel like I have time to wade through pages and
> pages of irrelevant links until I find what I'm looking for when I have a
> better resource right here.
>


> I've actually learned quite a few useful things from questions in
> the past
> couple of weeks since I joined this list that have obviously reappeared
> several times. Now, I could spend hours trawling the archives to see if
> there's anything of interest, but I don't really have the time -
> and in any
> event they're often things I wouldn't have thought about looking
> up anyway.


I love how the argument for not doing research is not having the time/not
wanting to waste time.  That is just lazy and selfish.  Since you don't want
to waste your time looking, it is perfectly acceptable for everyone else to
waste time reading a question that's been posted 80 times in the last month,
and possibly waste more time typing up the same answer that has probably
been posted 80+ times.  How is your time more important or valuable than
everyone else's?

This is not a personal attack on the two posters quoted, just my feelings on
that general attitude.


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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[John Manko]

perhaps there should be two lists (novice and advanced), and the 
advanced listed shouldn't
answer questions if it's considered trivial enough for the novice list 
to answer.



Curt Zirzow wrote:

* Thus wrote andu ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
 

This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most people 
are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. Unfortunately 
there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the manual' and other shit 
like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage day after day doesn't do 
anybody any good even if the manual is  not being read as much as it should 
   



Yes it is a busy list, I have 1000+ messages for 7 days worth.  

I'm not sure the noisyness of the list is entirely on the ones that
are helping.  There does seem to be a problem of people posting
questions that are plain as day in the manual, or have been
repeatedly answered here on the list (thus the joke, has it been 4
days already, being so funny :)  

if more people would read the manual or know how to find commonly
asked and solved quetions this list would probaly drop in 20% (very
rough estimate) of posts.  Getting that information to the people
who arn't reading the manual is a difficult task, cause if they
arn't reading the manual, why would they even bother with reading
the information on how to find the answer.
Now noisyness from the 'helpers'...  I have noticed at times that a
question is answered the same way like 10 times by 10 different
people; this I consider more noisy than a RTFM post.
 

be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree with 
the content?
   

Now, I kinda wondered at first if I should not respond to this
cause it's rather in a disagreement tone :)  

I think this shouldn't be considered a bad thing to do.  If you
find something you disagree with and have (legit) arguments, I
would insist that the person reply to it. Of course this only helps
if it was in a constructive manor, which I hope this reply was
done.
Cheers,

Curt
 



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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Curt Zirzow]

* Thus wrote [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> > This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
> > people  are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning.
> > Unfortunately  there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the
> > manual' and other shit  like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such
> > garbage day after day doesn't do  anybody any good even if the manual
> > is  not being read as much as it should  be. Is it too difficult to not
> > answer the post at all if you disagree with  the content?
> >
> >
> > Andu
> >
> > --
> 
> good on you , i'm sick and tired of twats replying with i dont understand
> your question or RTFM , i absolutely "hate" RTFM , the idea of the list is
> to help eachother out and even post back to the list the completed code
> someone was stuck on to share with everyone , if there is no decent asnwer
> to reply with dont reply at all

Calling someone a twat is not going to persuade anybody to change
how you think a proper reply should be.

If I dont understand someone's question, should I not let them know
that if that make themselves a little clearer a better answer may
be given instead of 12 people shooting in the dark giving answers
to problems that are not the issue the person is having?


: skips comment on RTFM :)

Yes the list is about helping people out, but we (those who help
people) arn't here to write someone elses code.  If and when that
is done people become too lazy and rely on the list to have their
problems solved, instead of the user doing research himself to
find out if this is a common problem.

Like for example, when people are asking for examples a simple
google search for '' example', usually results with
some good examples.

cheers,

Curt
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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Robert Cummings]

On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 16:36, Chris Sherwood wrote:
> 
> or what does it take to actually give a reasonable answer... if I am gonna
> be rude I  wont say anything... doesnt any one remember their mother telling
> them if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all?
> 

That kind of thinking leads to things like Hitler :| If we never say
anything then it becomes the norm for people to continue their
behaviour. Currently the question being debated is what constitutes poor
behaviour/etiquette within this mailing list. While I agree that this
forum is primarily for answering questions -- I disagree that it is for
answering silly little questions that would be common knowledge if the
asker had bothered to read any tutorials or documentation -- most
especially when it appears that the poster didn't even bother to do any
kind of searching for themselves. I mean really, questions like "does X
do Y" is often as simple as writing 1 to 5 lines of test code which is
probably shorter than the email itself and doesn't pollute the mailing
list with 5 to 10 replies of "yes" or "no".

Cheers,
Rob.
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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Chris W. Parker]

Jennifer Goodie 
on Wednesday, August 06, 2003 11:27 AM said:

>> and in any event they're often things I
>> wouldn't have thought about looking up anyway.
> 
> 
> I love how the argument for not doing research is not having the
> time/not wanting to waste time.  That is just lazy and selfish.

I totally agree with you on the time factor. The answerers time (for
lack of a better word) is more important than the questioners time
(again, for lack of a better word).

But I think a good point that the above quote contains is "in any event
they're often things I wouldn't have thought about looking up anyway".

I find that, although I know my question is rudimentary, I don't even
know how to search for it on google or in the archives. I don't know
what a function is called, or what it /might/ be called and therefore my
only recourse is to describe what I'm thinking (or trying/wanting to do)
to another human being that can better interpret my question than google
or the archives can.

I'll even search groups.google.com by asking my question in as few words
as possible. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't, and mainly
because people don't always ask the same question the same way.

Here's an example...

"How do I return a string based on certain criteria? For example I've
got the string 'magical mystery tour' and I want to return the word
'myst' if it's found within the original string."

A bad answer would be:

"RTFM http://php.net/preg_match";

A good answer would be:

"That can be done with a regular expression. The function you're looking
for is called preg_match. http://php.net/preg_match";


And guess what, I pasted that question into google and it gave me not
one good result. It did tell me how the Rio works though.


My .02

Chris.

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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Chris W. Parker]

Robert Cummings 
on Wednesday, August 06, 2003 12:27 PM said:

> Your example is ridiculous -- it looks like you want a search egnine
> to properly phrase the question for you.

No it's not and it should be apparent why.

"I'll even search groups.google.com by asking my question in as few
words as possible. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't"

As you can see here, I explain that I do exactly what you suggest below.

> This works and is more concise and clear: php find a string in a
> string

The reason I noted google didn't know what the heck I was talking about
was because we're assuming the person asking the question (who btw is
not me) wouldn't be able to come up with "php find a string in a
string". That's the whole point! It's not that the person is lazy or
stupid, it's that the person DOESN'T KNOW HOW to ask the question
properly. It takes time to learn to pick out the key words and
understand what's important and what's fluff.

> I rarely answer questions anymore because I find that many
> people want the coders on the PHP mailing list to do their work for
> them because they're too lazy to bother doing some research.

u r such teh 1337 h4x0r. thx 4 playing!

> Also to
> get back to the problem of wording queries wrong in google or
> whatever -- maybe trying a fwe different queries would help.

Of course it would!

In fact I agree so much, I'd rather struggle with a problem for an hour
than ask the list for help.

> Anyways this is all just my humble opinion.

Hardly.



chris.

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Juan Nin]

and please don't answer saying that you aggree or don't agree with me
I don't care

just cut off with this thread please  :)

Juan



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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Chris W. Parker]

Gabriel Guzman 
on Wednesday, August 06, 2003 1:10 PM said:

> On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 11:44, Chris W. Parker wrote:
> 
>> A bad answer would be:
>> 
>> "RTFM http://php.net/preg_match";
>> 
>> A good answer would be:
>> 
>> "That can be done with a regular expression. The function you're
>> looking for is called preg_match. http://php.net/preg_match";
> 
> I fail to see the difference.

Aside from the fact that $example1 != $example2, they are different in
ATTITUDE.

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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[andu]

--On Wednesday, August 06, 2003 13:11:52 -0700 "Chris W. Parker" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Aside from the fact that $example1 != $example2, they are different in
ATTITUDE.
Which was the original issue of this thread. Seems like few (with a 
temporary advantage of knowledge) would consider not to have an attitude 
(don't like to answer, don't do it) and if there is a choice, the nasty one 
seems to prevail. I guess it's a reflection of the times/place we are 
living or a huge lack of imagination.
My last word on this...

Andu

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Chris Sherwood]

well I have been watching this post all morning and now into the afternoon..

personally I think there is differences in responses and well there are
definite persons with an elitist attitude, some of these people are
newbies... under immense amounts of pressure to pull something off... what
does it cost to type strpos()?

or what does it take to actually give a reasonable answer... if I am gonna
be rude I  wont say anything... doesnt any one remember their mother telling
them if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all?

anyways lets let this topic drop and get back to what we all do best and
thats coding..


Chris


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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Jay Blanchard]

[snip]
Andu's right. I've left several lists in the past, not because of people

listing questions where they should have read the manual first, but
because I 
couldn't stand the sad b**ds who get their kicks by belittling
people 
with less knowledge but more manners than themselves.
[/snip]

neurotic

\Neu*rot"ic\, a. [Gr. ? nerve.] 1. Of or pertaining to the nerves;
seated in the nerves; nervous; as, a neurotic disease. 2. Uself in
disorders of, or affecting, the nerves.

I am being a smart-arse now, but I believe that dictionaries and Xanax
are in order for some of you. Get over it! RTFM, STFW, and STFA are NOT
PERSONAL ATTACKS! Those are reserved for off-list replies unless the
flame is warranted on list. Here we go ...

You are such whiney babies. Most of the STFM posts have a link directly
to the relevant portion of the manual or a link to the archived
materials. What would happen if those who posted such messages quit
doing it? I don't know the manual backwards and forwards, many have told
me to RTFM (with a relevant link) and I have gone on to learning
something that I didn't know.

Get over it.

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Mike Mannakee]

Hey - it doesn't actually seem to matter whether one does research or not.
Almost every single post I make, someone just HAS to tell me to search
google, which is maddening.  The whole idea behind a forum like this is to
be able to communicate with others who may be able to help, and who you may
be able to help.  So someone replying with a pissy RTFM is trying to get you
not to communicate with your friends.  That pretty much tells me where
they're at as individuals.  I don't need in-depth discussions with them to
figure out they don't have many friends and are rather lonely in life, which
is a bit pathetic as they have a whole community of people here that are
very friendly and also like-minded, as well as other people in their lives
that they incessantly work to alienate.  But, hey, there's always gotta be a
few in any bunch.

Mike


"Jay Blanchard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[snip]
This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most
people
are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. Unfortunately
there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the manual' and other
shit
like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage day after day doesn't
do
anybody any good even if the manual is  not being read as much as it
should
be. Is it too difficult to not answer the post at all if you disagree
with
the content?
[/snip]

I know that this has circulated, but RTFA (toungue-firmly-in-cheeck)
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

My suggestion, quit posting "shit like this" when it has been covered
dozens of times. Talk about "noise". Look how many replies this thread
generated. Looks very much to me like you are
http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame29.html I know I use RTFM, STFW,
and STFA a lot, but when the poster makes it apparent that they have
done no research it is an expected and acceptable answer.

HTH!



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RE: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Ford, Mike [LSS]]

On 06 August 2003 08:25, Daryl Meese  wrote:

> 
> For my part on at least one occassion I posted a question to
> the list after
> reading the manual (which in that case was clear as mud) and
> got the "RTFM".
> I was tempted to respond with IDRTFM  -  GFY.

Well, easy way to avoid that is to say "I have RTFM, but ..." at the start of your 
mail.  Then if you get an RTFM response, at least you can RTFM back (M=message!).

Cheers!

Mike

-
Mike Ford,  Electronic Information Services Adviser,
Learning Support Services, Learning & Information Services,
JG125, James Graham Building, Leeds Metropolitan University,
Beckett Park, LEEDS,  LS6 3QS,  United Kingdom
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tel: +44 113 283 2600 extn 4730  Fax:  +44 113 283 3211 


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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[Jason Wong]

On Wednesday 06 August 2003 14:26, Curt Zirzow wrote:

> Now noisyness from the 'helpers'...  I have noticed at times that a
> question is answered the same way like 10 times by 10 different
> people; this I consider more noisy than a RTFM post.

And what I find really annoying is that some helpers being really 'helpful' 
copy and paste whole chunks from the manual.

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Re: [PHP] Stop neurotic posting

[John W. Holmes]

andu wrote:

This is a very busy list, over 100 message in a quiet day and most 
people are helpful and decent, don't mind reading and learning. 
Unfortunately there are some who mostly post stuff like 'read the 
manual' and other shit like that. Stuffing e-mailboxes with such garbage 
day after day doesn't do anybody any good even if the manual is  not 
being read as much as it should be. Is it too difficult to not answer 
the post at all if you disagree with the content?
Please search the archives... this argument has been made before.

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