People will read, but only up until it gets too much or abusive of their attention. Error messages can be cryptic and cause some mental trashing until the reade

People will read, but only up until it gets too much or abusive of their attention. Error messages can be cryptic and cause some mental trashing until the reader realized her bad investment of attention, gives up, and makes a mental note to self to lower the expected value of error messages in the future. Emails? Not when you get overburden with the amount received and when a lot of those have a very tenuous relation with you (but if a future demand pops up for a knowledgeable person, you're in the recipient list, so you're considered ready and waiting). Documentation? Alas, there's only so much of it that can be really useful for a reader and only so much quality grooming that the confluence of various budgets (writer's patience and attention being the most important ones) could support. One reason people prefer to ask directly is because this way they get a chance to control the interaction and direct the answers to whatever they really need and thus avoid waste. This being said, I am one of those technical guy having to answer to a lot of (seemingly lazy) people, which is something that often drives me crazy. The trick I come up with is to show my genuine impatience, redirect new people to the ones I've already explained the same thing, and let them milk each other for information.