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I've recently been reading over certain forums that happening to be basically the only community support option for a niche and honestly I'm not sure I'd care t

I've recently been reading over certain forums that happening to be basically the only community support option for a niche and honestly I'm not sure I'd care to waste my time posting there. In one case a user wanted to do something a bit unorthodox, but not entirely crazy and was struggling to figure out a way to architect it. One of the first replies? A more experienced member making a sarcastic, snide paragraph on why the askers initial architecture was not viable. Thats it, no real info as to why (except that it was over complicated andcontrived), no guidance on a better option. There also tends to be a number of "RTFM" type comments when I know damn well the official documentation is bad. Its not uncommon to find broken links, links to obsolete, incompatible versions, poor discoverability etc. In other places, I've had people call my an idiot for wasting my time trying to do something because it was "too hard". It's a different discussion, but I also get the feeling there a number of communities that don't really care for hobbyists or hackers in general.

ketzo 6y ago
I think it’s very common to think “if I had to RTFM, then so do you!” It’s kind of depressingly pervasive.
- rgoulter 6y ago
  I can see at least a couple of unpleasant interactions: On one end of things, people who want help but then get harsh/unhelpful replies like that. On the other end of the scale, if you have the capability to help, but are faced with people who are too lazy to even listen to your answers. -- It's an asymmetry with some poor incentives. I think it'd be ideal if everyone who answered questions was polite, respectful and helpful all the time. I think it'd be nice if people who asked questions also did so in a polite, respectful and helpful way. Somewhat exasperating the asker's position is that.. often if they're conscientious enough to do the legwork in order to ask a good question, they're more likely to find the answer. Whereas someone who is entitled and doesn't know enough about the domain is more likely to be asking bad questions.
dijit 6y ago
I think it’s unfair to say that RTFM (if delivered well, and linked to the relevant documentation) is a poor response. Documentation should be the canonical source of truth and more clearly laid out than any person can deliver. Though, a better statement than RTFM (that I see in the Postgres community on IRC most commonly) is “does this documentation answer your question?” The intention is clear that if it doesn’t answer the question then they will help and update the documentation.
ngangert 6y ago
When you look deeper into these stories, most of the time the poster is entitled, passive aggressive or thinks he knows everything better. How come that some people never have issues when posting for the first time in various forums? Perhaps they use traditional etiquette? Harsh reactions are a self preservation mechanism. You get burned out pretty quickly by accomodating every know-it-all on the Internet. In that forum, the maintainers probably have seen similar requests for hundreds of times.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I've ended up asking questions that were explained in the docs pretty well more than I dare to think about. The issue, I think, is that while the people in a community live and breathe $technology, I'm just a tourist; $technology is just one of many things I have to work with, know and understand, and it's a lot of mental effort to try and balance them all. I mean recently I'm running into more and more issues with $technology and am considering moving away from it; I've scanned the docs again, but finding no answer for my issue with $technology I've opened up a GH question issue. Usually the community manager is pretty helpful. But the thing there: The community manager manages just that project, it's his job, it's his library, he wrote most of the code and the docs, and if anyone knows his stuff, it's him. But for me, his library is just one of many gears in my system. At least the docs for that one are manageable, can probably be read end to end in about an hour.
jlokier 6y ago
If you think that's bad, I once had someone privately write to me an angry rant about how I was being too helpful to users on a mailing list. They felt there must be something wrong with me if I had so much time to help, surely I had a job to do, that it was not good for other programmers when some of us give so much of our time for free, etc. I'm not exaggerating, that really was the theme of the complaint.

ketzo 6y ago

I think it’s very common to think “if I had to RTFM, then so do you!” It’s kind of depressingly pervasive.

rgoulter 6y ago
I can see at least a couple of unpleasant interactions: On one end of things, people who want help but then get harsh/unhelpful replies like that. On the other end of the scale, if you have the capability to help, but are faced with people who are too lazy to even listen to your answers. -- It's an asymmetry with some poor incentives. I think it'd be ideal if everyone who answered questions was polite, respectful and helpful all the time. I think it'd be nice if people who asked questions also did so in a polite, respectful and helpful way. Somewhat exasperating the asker's position is that.. often if they're conscientious enough to do the legwork in order to ask a good question, they're more likely to find the answer. Whereas someone who is entitled and doesn't know enough about the domain is more likely to be asking bad questions.

dijit 6y ago

I think it’s unfair to say that RTFM (if delivered well, and linked to the relevant documentation) is a poor response. Documentation should be the canonical source of truth and more clearly laid out than any person can deliver. Though, a better statement than RTFM (that I see in the Postgres community on IRC most commonly) is “does this documentation answer your question?” The intention is clear that if it doesn’t answer the question then they will help and update the documentation.

ngangert 6y ago

When you look deeper into these stories, most of the time the poster is entitled, passive aggressive or thinks he knows everything better. How come that some people never have issues when posting for the first time in various forums? Perhaps they use traditional etiquette? Harsh reactions are a self preservation mechanism. You get burned out pretty quickly by accomodating every know-it-all on the Internet. In that forum, the maintainers probably have seen similar requests for hundreds of times.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

I've ended up asking questions that were explained in the docs pretty well more than I dare to think about. The issue, I think, is that while the people in a community live and breathe $technology, I'm just a tourist; $technology is just one of many things I have to work with, know and understand, and it's a lot of mental effort to try and balance them all. I mean recently I'm running into more and more issues with $technology and am considering moving away from it; I've scanned the docs again, but finding no answer for my issue with $technology I've opened up a GH question issue. Usually the community manager is pretty helpful. But the thing there: The community manager manages just that project, it's his job, it's his library, he wrote most of the code and the docs, and if anyone knows his stuff, it's him. But for me, his library is just one of many gears in my system. At least the docs for that one are manageable, can probably be read end to end in about an hour.

jlokier 6y ago

If you think that's bad, I once had someone privately write to me an angry rant about how I was being too helpful to users on a mailing list. They felt there must be something wrong with me if I had so much time to help, surely I had a job to do, that it was not good for other programmers when some of us give so much of our time for free, etc. I'm not exaggerating, that really was the theme of the complaint.