Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uupsi!sunic!news.funet.fi!uwasa.fi!ts
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Is it just me...?
Message-ID: <1990Oct20.195358.11948@uwasa.fi>
Date: 20 Oct 90 19:53:58 GMT
References: <28019@bellcore.bellcore.com> <4617@trantor.harris-atd.com> <4618@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Organization: University of Vaasa
Lines: 40

In article <4618@trantor.harris-atd.com> sonny@trantor.harris-atd.com (Bob Davis) writes:
>
>  Doesn't it seem that WAY over HALF the posted questions in this group
>are of the generic forms: (1) "Does anyone know where I can find 
>program ________?", or (2) "Are there programs which do __________?",
>almost ALL of which are resolvable by scanning catalog information files from 
>SIMTEL and/or one or more of the other archives that the Frequently Asked 
>Questions (FAQ) postings tell you about?

Yes, it is true that some of these postings seem to arise from a
kind of lethargy in respect to scanning the well available file
lists.  But also note that the issue is not quite that simple. 

Sometimes the appropriate program is not easy to find even after a
perusal of the file lists.  And here the experiences of the other
users may come very useful.  Let me take one example.  I looked for
a good binary editor for quite awile.  In this it was not enough to
scan the file lists.  I had to test the various alternatives as
well.  Now in my case I did this myself.  Be that as may now I can
share such information with other users potentially asking a similar
kind of question, which has no easy answer. 

There must be a balance between the following two unsatisfactory
extremes: 1) Users not daring to post because of a fear of getting
flamed their sock off for the posted question.  2) Exploiting others
on the net by trying to get them to do even one's trivial work out
of sheer laziness.  Please be careful of these two extremes both if
you are intending to post a question, or intending to flame a poster
for asking a question that sounds trivial to a more experienced
netter. 

Now, I not trying to lay down any rules here (it's not even my lot). 
Only the observation that in posing a question, and answering it,
one major consideration is will this information benefit the users. 
Is it of general interest?

...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi        (Moderating at anon. ftp site 128.214.12.3)
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun