Chris McDonough wrote:
On Fri, 2004-09-24 at 18:28, Michael R. Bernstein wrote:
You typed it in wrong. If you click the URL I provided above, Google searches for 'zope sessions'. You obviously searched for 'zope+sessions'. Plus signs in URLs are spaces.
FWIW, when I click on the provided URL I don't see the Session chapter of the Zope book as any direct result until the 27th link. And it's the one at ZopeWiki.org, which isn't really "canonical". I find this strange, given that Google is typically so good at this kind of thing and given that you apparently see different results.
Regardless, I can sympathize with both sides of this argument. I have been on both sides in the past. IMO:
- the questioner should try to provide a roundup of the things he has already tried and might try soon ("I tried X, I tried Y, neither of them worked, I am considering doing Z, is that a good idea?" and so forth.)
Completely AMEN!
- when a questioner gets a response that isn't satisfactory and feels compelled to reask, he should state exactly why the original response was unsatisfactory. "That doesn't seem right" is not a good explanation of why something is unsatisfactory. A better one would be "that doesn't work because it causes X...".
- if a responder doesn't feel like he has to provide a detailed answer because it's an RTFM question, it would be nice of him to give a URL or another detailed description of where in TFM to look. If he doesn't have the time to do this, he might consider not responding at all. OTOH, sometime the slightest clues are useful, so it's somewhat of a judgment call.
This point and the above one could be a little difficult (don't forget some people here don't speak english as native languaje, for example myself: I'm spanish)
- a responder should be courteous and not harsh. This is just normal human interaction. Being smart about a subject does not itself give you a license to be discourteous to others. OTOH, IT people in general have a somewhat well-deserved reputation as being obstreporous; this is mostly because (like the Dutch ;-) they typically lack tact. This comes across on maillists as well as in real life. Most of the time it's not malicious, it's just more efficient than actually taking the time to be courteous. Germans seem to exhibit this behavior more frequently than other contributors. ;-) If you understand this, you can usually get along quite well with them.
Completely agree again. This is not a negotiation, this is people helping others
- C
The point is to say where to find the information is "obvious" is clearly subjective.
I think searching Google for 'zope sessions' is reasonably objective.
I think you need to read 'How to ask questions the smart way': http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
I'm curious, what part specifically did Asad not follow?
From the 'Before you ask' section:
"Before asking a technical question by email, or in a newsgroup, or on a website chat board, do the following:
1. Try to find an answer by searching the Web. 2. Try to find an answer by reading the manual. 3. [snip]"
By the way, did you happen to see the part about how to answer them? There is a lot of good stuff there like: [snip]
Sure, I've read that too. Doesn't really apply here as he *got* a good answer to his first question, then proceeded to ask further questions that he could have found the answers to himself with little effort, at which point I'm not inclined to insist that further courtesies (and they *are* courtesies, not an entitlement) be extended. Being polite as you waste other people's time doesn't earn you any points.
So he got a 'Read the API' answer (not even remotely a flame), which elicited a 'nicely done' comment from Jonathan, prompting a *very* rude response from Asad, after which Andreas gave a polite rejoinder, at which point you started jumping down people's throats for not spoon-feeding him the answer he wanted.
Do you *want* the remaining experts to stop frequenting the general Zope list?
-- Michael Bernstein
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