6 ms·

What a pretentious bunch of gatekeeping nonsense. Clearly, ESR (and anyone following the tenets of documents like this) are not actually interested in teaching

by smlacy 4y ago

What a pretentious bunch of gatekeeping nonsense. Clearly, ESR (and anyone following the tenets of documents like this) are not actually interested in teaching anyone anything. They have a truly transactional perspective on "Question Asking" in that some questions are "worthy of answering" and others aren't. People who "Take without giving back" (his words) are exactly those who you're teaching. They absorb knowledge directly from those providing the answers. Teaching is the act of understanding where your audience is in the learning process, and leading/guiding them through that journey in a kind and patient way. The truly ignorant don't know how to ask the question. Think of a child who's first learning computer programming. Think of an adult who's studying a foreign language for the first time. Think of the questions of a child who's never experienced snow. > What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions. People like that are time sinks — they take without giving back, and they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another person more worthy of an answer. We call people like this “losers” (and for historical reasons we sometimes spell it “lusers”). And this is why "internet hostility" is a thing. Good job creating this horrible culture right from the start. Please don't follow the advice of this column. Be patient. Encourage anyone and everyone to ask questions, even if they're "duplicates" or "easy to answer". Use the Socratic Method (ask questions that lead to more questions). Actually teach people things.

Kim_Bruning 4y ago
The document is harsh, but not mean, and not wrong. If you've ever tried helping out large numbers of people online, you'll have encountered most -if not all- of the described situations yourself. ESR is definitely a bit of a personality though. Better versions of the document appreciated.
- lliamander 4y ago
  I think we mostly agree, except that I'm not sure how it could be improved: it's clear, to the point, and has numerous concrete examples. Criticisms of tone are more subjective, but I don't think they hold up here either. It lacks the structural characteristics of a flame or rant, nor does it portray anyone in an uncharitable light: both the perspectives and needs of those asking and answering questions are presented fairly.
0xcde4c3db 4y ago
I think this advice is largely geared toward dealing with the "Eternal September" dynamic of a small number of elders/experts being overwhelmed by exposure to the general public in relatively unstructured forums like Usenet and mailing lists (despite being tagged 2014, the original is much older). I'm not sure we really live in that world anymore.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  We do still live in that world: in technical mailing lists and forums and even in Q&A sites, asking a good question rewards you with better answers and discussion than asking a badly worded form of the same question.
Hermitian909 4y ago
> Teaching is the act of understanding where your audience is in the learning process, and leading/guiding them through that journey in a kind and patient way. But the article is written as instructions for asking questions to non-teachers, and is a flawed but generally decent guide to that. I'm an educator turned software engineer and one of the difficult parts of that transition was learning that I had to stop answering most questions that weren't "worth answering". While I'd love to teach the people answering these questions I don't have the time, it's not my job, and often the ROI is low (many people asking questions don't want to spend the effort needed to learn, they want a problem to be solved for them).
lliamander 4y ago
> Please don't follow the advice of this column. Be patient. Encourage anyone and everyone to ask questions, even if they're "duplicates" or "easy to answer". Use the Socratic Method (ask questions that lead to more questions). Actually teach people things. That's the thing though, this is advice for people asking questions, not answering them. If you are advising someone on how to ask questions on the internet, telling them how to avoid being called a "luser" is very good advice! He actually does give advice for people answering questions at the end, and he definitely encourages them to be more gentle and helpful. But it is important not to waste the time of people who are providing what is essentially complex technical consulting for free. BTW, this is also good advice for asking questions in a professional setting. Not being someone who needs to be spoon-fed information is always going to make you more respectable.
nescioquid 4y ago
This is advice to individuals on how to be more effective at finding answers to their own questions, and how to reduce the burden on those who are willing to help. If you want to be effective at getting answers, please do follow this advice. If you don't want to be impolite and entitled, please do follow this advice.
burnished 4y ago
Genuinely, I think you may be getting upset about the tone more than the contents. The advice is generally good (if outdated). If you follow it you will generally answer more of your own questions faster, and when you do need to ask questions they will be easier to answer because they will highlight your misunderstanding or problem. I'm saying this as some one who answers newbie programming questions on the internet. Trying to help some one who has not put any effort into understanding is taxing. > Teaching is the act of understanding where your audience is in the learning process, and leading/guiding them through that journey in a kind and patient way. The truly ignorant don't know how to ask the question. Think of a child who's first learning computer programming. Think of an adult who's studying a foreign language for the first time. Think of the questions of a child who's never experienced snow. These are all allowed - "I'm trying to learn more about <topic>, I searched for <a,b,c> and the results did not seem related, can some point me in the right direction?".
m463 4y ago
its unfortunate that ESR has always been a little snooty, but I guess that's what gave him the gumption to go publish and maintain all this internet history.
the-smug-one 4y ago
Edit: OK, I've calmed down. It might not be worth reading what's below this paragraph. The TL;DR is: The cost of helping people is high, it takes time and energy from you. There are people who don't care about your time and energy, they'll use you as much as possible. These people are called help vampires. >Please don't follow the advice of this column. Be patient. Encourage anyone and everyone to ask questions, even if they're "duplicates" or "easy to answer". Use the Socratic Method (ask questions that lead to more questions). Actually teach people things. I will not do this unless the person I'm teaching is showing a willingness to dedicate their own resources to the issues at hand. I'll do this for my own child, but if you seriously apply this online at big forums you'll get infested with help vampires. Help vampires F:ing SUCK, for real. You speak with a lot of pathos and like you've never have tried to help people a lot and had to deal with these. These people will do anything to take your energy and time away from you. They'll ask a question that's answerable in the FAQ, you'll direct them there, and they'll say "oh, it's just nicer to speak to people, can't you tell me :)?" or "my situation is very special, it's not answered by the FAQ". I'm ranting, but holy crap having to deal with help vampires completely destroys your outlook on these things.
- Grothendank 4y ago
  It would be better to help zero people than it would be to develop the bitter attitude you've developed - this is because your attitude could prevent people from helping! I feel you've helped too many people, with too little reward, and for that matter with too little progress in your ability to help. That's not the fault of the people needing help, though, now is it? So why are you characterizing them as vampires? IMO rather than embittering people against helping others, you should retire from helping ppl that aren't paying for your help. That way, you'll stop embittering and misguiding helper volunteers, whose jobs literally ARE to help people who don't seem to "get" the docs.
  - Kim_Bruning 4y ago
    You're denying a person's lived experience and telling them to stop doing what they love. That's not very nice. And I know what they're talking about. I'll put it a bit more politely: You can't help people who aren't willing to help themselves. It's a thing. When you start helping out people in forums or on irc or what have you, sooner or later you'll encounter people who either can't be helped or just require far too much energy. No matter how much you'd like to help everyone, you just can't. It happens. I believe parent poster has already calmed down, but I can understand their feelings. It's frustrating sometimes! The many people you are able to help make up for it though.
ThrowawayR2 4y ago
The article asks for basics like attempting to make a reasonable effort to research an answer on your own first, making sure that your question is appropriate for the place you're asking it, and providing enough information for potential answerers to easily help you. That's not "gatekeeping", that's common courtesy, and I am unable to fathom how anyone could view it otherwise.
kens 4y ago
I agree. The guide is ostensibly written to explain to people how they should ask questions but a "newbie" is unlikely to read this 11,000 word epic. The real purpose of this guide is telling hackers how they should behave, promoting arrogant hacker culture. For example: "If you can't be bothered to do that, we can't be bothered to pay attention. [If you ask for help, hackers] are likely to return logically impeccable but dismissive answers like “Yes, you can be helped” and “No, there is no help for you.” Claiming urgency is very likely to be counter-productive: most hackers will simply delete such messages as rude and selfish. There is an ancient and hallowed tradition: if you get a reply that reads “RTFM”... [If you screw up] you'll be told exactly how you screwed up, possibly with colourful asides. Hackers are in some ways a very ruthless meritocracy." The guide also has "yikes" parts such as: "Seriously overusing smileys and color and fonts will make you come off like a giggly teenage girl, which is not generally a good idea unless you are more interested in sex than answers."
- Grothendank 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - msla 4y ago
    Good luck trying to bully someone who can use a killfile.
- msla 4y ago
  The fact the bully agrees with you says nasty things about your opinion.
msla 4y ago
> What a pretentious bunch of gatekeeping nonsense. So you're opposed to people be respectful of the time and attention of others? What an interesting and unique perspective. Please go on.
msla 4y ago
The fact the bully agrees with you says nasty things about your opinion.

by smlacy 4y ago

Kim_Bruning 4y ago

The document is harsh, but not mean, and not wrong. If you've ever tried helping out large numbers of people online, you'll have encountered most -if not all- of the described situations yourself. ESR is definitely a bit of a personality though. Better versions of the document appreciated.

lliamander 4y ago
I think we mostly agree, except that I'm not sure how it could be improved: it's clear, to the point, and has numerous concrete examples. Criticisms of tone are more subjective, but I don't think they hold up here either. It lacks the structural characteristics of a flame or rant, nor does it portray anyone in an uncharitable light: both the perspectives and needs of those asking and answering questions are presented fairly.

0xcde4c3db 4y ago

I think this advice is largely geared toward dealing with the "Eternal September" dynamic of a small number of elders/experts being overwhelmed by exposure to the general public in relatively unstructured forums like Usenet and mailing lists (despite being tagged 2014, the original is much older). I'm not sure we really live in that world anymore.

dsr_ 4y ago
We do still live in that world: in technical mailing lists and forums and even in Q&A sites, asking a good question rewards you with better answers and discussion than asking a badly worded form of the same question.

Hermitian909 4y ago

> Teaching is the act of understanding where your audience is in the learning process, and leading/guiding them through that journey in a kind and patient way. But the article is written as instructions for asking questions to non-teachers, and is a flawed but generally decent guide to that. I'm an educator turned software engineer and one of the difficult parts of that transition was learning that I had to stop answering most questions that weren't "worth answering". While I'd love to teach the people answering these questions I don't have the time, it's not my job, and often the ROI is low (many people asking questions don't want to spend the effort needed to learn, they want a problem to be solved for them).

lliamander 4y ago

> Please don't follow the advice of this column. Be patient. Encourage anyone and everyone to ask questions, even if they're "duplicates" or "easy to answer". Use the Socratic Method (ask questions that lead to more questions). Actually teach people things. That's the thing though, this is advice for people asking questions, not answering them. If you are advising someone on how to ask questions on the internet, telling them how to avoid being called a "luser" is very good advice! He actually does give advice for people answering questions at the end, and he definitely encourages them to be more gentle and helpful. But it is important not to waste the time of people who are providing what is essentially complex technical consulting for free. BTW, this is also good advice for asking questions in a professional setting. Not being someone who needs to be spoon-fed information is always going to make you more respectable.

nescioquid 4y ago

This is advice to individuals on how to be more effective at finding answers to their own questions, and how to reduce the burden on those who are willing to help. If you want to be effective at getting answers, please do follow this advice. If you don't want to be impolite and entitled, please do follow this advice.

burnished 4y ago

Genuinely, I think you may be getting upset about the tone more than the contents. The advice is generally good (if outdated). If you follow it you will generally answer more of your own questions faster, and when you do need to ask questions they will be easier to answer because they will highlight your misunderstanding or problem. I'm saying this as some one who answers newbie programming questions on the internet. Trying to help some one who has not put any effort into understanding is taxing. > Teaching is the act of understanding where your audience is in the learning process, and leading/guiding them through that journey in a kind and patient way. The truly ignorant don't know how to ask the question. Think of a child who's first learning computer programming. Think of an adult who's studying a foreign language for the first time. Think of the questions of a child who's never experienced snow. These are all allowed - "I'm trying to learn more about <topic>, I searched for <a,b,c> and the results did not seem related, can some point me in the right direction?".

m463 4y ago

its unfortunate that ESR has always been a little snooty, but I guess that's what gave him the gumption to go publish and maintain all this internet history.

the-smug-one 4y ago

Edit: OK, I've calmed down. It might not be worth reading what's below this paragraph. The TL;DR is: The cost of helping people is high, it takes time and energy from you. There are people who don't care about your time and energy, they'll use you as much as possible. These people are called help vampires. >Please don't follow the advice of this column. Be patient. Encourage anyone and everyone to ask questions, even if they're "duplicates" or "easy to answer". Use the Socratic Method (ask questions that lead to more questions). Actually teach people things. I will not do this unless the person I'm teaching is showing a willingness to dedicate their own resources to the issues at hand. I'll do this for my own child, but if you seriously apply this online at big forums you'll get infested with help vampires. Help vampires F:ing SUCK, for real. You speak with a lot of pathos and like you've never have tried to help people a lot and had to deal with these. These people will do anything to take your energy and time away from you. They'll ask a question that's answerable in the FAQ, you'll direct them there, and they'll say "oh, it's just nicer to speak to people, can't you tell me :)?" or "my situation is very special, it's not answered by the FAQ". I'm ranting, but holy crap having to deal with help vampires completely destroys your outlook on these things.

Grothendank 4y ago
It would be better to help zero people than it would be to develop the bitter attitude you've developed - this is because your attitude could prevent people from helping! I feel you've helped too many people, with too little reward, and for that matter with too little progress in your ability to help. That's not the fault of the people needing help, though, now is it? So why are you characterizing them as vampires? IMO rather than embittering people against helping others, you should retire from helping ppl that aren't paying for your help. That way, you'll stop embittering and misguiding helper volunteers, whose jobs literally ARE to help people who don't seem to "get" the docs.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  You're denying a person's lived experience and telling them to stop doing what they love. That's not very nice. And I know what they're talking about. I'll put it a bit more politely: You can't help people who aren't willing to help themselves. It's a thing. When you start helping out people in forums or on irc or what have you, sooner or later you'll encounter people who either can't be helped or just require far too much energy. No matter how much you'd like to help everyone, you just can't. It happens. I believe parent poster has already calmed down, but I can understand their feelings. It's frustrating sometimes! The many people you are able to help make up for it though.

ThrowawayR2 4y ago

The article asks for basics like attempting to make a reasonable effort to research an answer on your own first, making sure that your question is appropriate for the place you're asking it, and providing enough information for potential answerers to easily help you. That's not "gatekeeping", that's common courtesy, and I am unable to fathom how anyone could view it otherwise.

kens 4y ago

I agree. The guide is ostensibly written to explain to people how they should ask questions but a "newbie" is unlikely to read this 11,000 word epic. The real purpose of this guide is telling hackers how they should behave, promoting arrogant hacker culture. For example: "If you can't be bothered to do that, we can't be bothered to pay attention. [If you ask for help, hackers] are likely to return logically impeccable but dismissive answers like “Yes, you can be helped” and “No, there is no help for you.” Claiming urgency is very likely to be counter-productive: most hackers will simply delete such messages as rude and selfish. There is an ancient and hallowed tradition: if you get a reply that reads “RTFM”... [If you screw up] you'll be told exactly how you screwed up, possibly with colourful asides. Hackers are in some ways a very ruthless meritocracy." The guide also has "yikes" parts such as: "Seriously overusing smileys and color and fonts will make you come off like a giggly teenage girl, which is not generally a good idea unless you are more interested in sex than answers."

Grothendank 4y ago
[flagged]
- msla 4y ago
  Good luck trying to bully someone who can use a killfile.
msla 4y ago
The fact the bully agrees with you says nasty things about your opinion.

msla 4y ago

> What a pretentious bunch of gatekeeping nonsense. So you're opposed to people be respectful of the time and attention of others? What an interesting and unique perspective. Please go on.

msla 4y ago

The fact the bully agrees with you says nasty things about your opinion.