Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: How to ask for info
Message-ID: <15890@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 18 Dec 88 15:51:23 GMT
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 32

keithe@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) writes:
>
>	1. ALL of them?  Sorry, but I *do* have to at least take a potty
>	   break now and then  :-)

Catheters.  Portable PCs and long phone cord extensions :-)

>	4. "Please reply by mail because I don't usually read this group" 
>	   translates into "I'm too damn lazy to look into this myself so
>	   how about someone else doing my research for me?" and results in 
>	   the question getting electronically round-filed, unless a promise
>	   to post a summary of responses is included.  

I used to be bothered by this attitude also, but consider someone who,
for some reason, has to come up with an answer to a question that's
right outside his/her normal field of interest or expertise.  (Or
perhaps it's an office worker who can't justify full working days of
newsreading on a routine basis (hmmm).)  Somehow it seems arrogant to me
to demand that this person wade through possibly 150 or 200 messages,
most of them irrelevant and possibly incomprehensible, on the off-chance
that the answer to his question has appeared within the last week or so.

Conversely, here I am with my world-shaking answer, just cryin' to be
shared with all the other newsjunkies.  In my case, I'm even willing to
take the time to read my own posting once to check for spilling and has
I made any grammatical errors.  (:-)  Am _I_ too damn lazy to mail it
to the original poster?  Or is that not enough of an ego-boost for me?

I dunno, I just don't like witholding information from someone simply
because he's been honest instead of attaching the right code phrases to
a request.  I could ask the person to post a summary of answers
eventually, if the question was really that fascinating....