[Zope] RE: Re: Disgraceful

[Chris McDonough]

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.)

- 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.

- 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.

- 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
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Zope maillist  -  Zope at zope.org
> http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope
> **   No cross posts or HTML encoding!  **
> (Related lists - 
>  http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce
>  http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
>