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Rockbox "Experts" are jerks

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LambdaCalculus:
See? They're not such bad guys after all! They aren't being jerks... it's just tough love!  :P

Llorean:
I'll agree I come off as a jerk, quite often. Ask the guys who went to DevConWest whether I'm much like that in real life though. Believe it or not, the way I treat these boards was a pretty tough decision for me.

But here's kinda how it boils down (to me):

1) It's the user's obligation to read the rules before posting on this board. To forward this, the (relatively short in comparison to some other places) agreement they click that they agree to before signing up includes a statement telling them where the rules are and that they're expected to follow them.

2) If the user doesn't follow the rules, that's a clear statement on their part that they to some degree don't respect the forum moderators and maintainers, through the fact that at the very least they chose not to read the agreement upon signup.

3) At this point while I'm not going to throw them out immediately, they've taken the first disruptive action, and some degree of "Come back when you've read the manual" is not overstepping bounds, and makes it clear that these forums are going to be somewhat harsh for someone who doesn't know where the lines are.

4) Reading the manual and searching are required by the guidelines. While somewhat less offensive to most than say, asking for illegal content, all the guidelines need to be enforced, effectively, or there's not much point in having them written as a guideline.

Many of the rules exist to try to keep the boards organized, so that searchers are more likely to find posts with solutions to their problems, rather than posts where someone asks about a problem and doesn't get a response because nobody wants to answer the same question. So, "read the manual" for this is a better response than no response at all, which often becomes the case in boards where there's too much noise in among the signal.

I will admit one problem still vexes me: Threads that are responded to with some variant of "just search" because they then contain relevant search terms, but no answer. So if someone searches for one of those terms, threads without an answer, telling them to search, may be among those they find. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there's no way to assure something be removed from searches beyond putting it out of the scope of user viewing, and that makes it difficult to insure the original poster has read it.

One solution to this is to remove the post entirely, and PM the original poster. This feels harsh. This may not be obvious to people, but I rarely lock posts, even if I respond to them with an answer telling the user to search or read the manual. This is actually because I don't mind if someone else does give them a direct answer, I'm just making it clear what policy is around here. Now, I will start locking and/or removing if I notice on person asking several questions answered in the manual (going back to the 'what good are rules not enforced') but it's a case of 'once they've explicitly been told to read the manual and the rules by a human being, there's no "I clicked through without reading, like everyone else in the world would do" excuse.' I still think it's proper to read the rules before you post in a forum, but realistically know there's no way I can have this expectation. But I don't feel people should need to be told more than once that "the rules will be enforced here" before you start removing or locking their posts and PMing them.

Still, no good solution to "first posts with the only response being 'please search before posting, as the rules require" so I'm welcome to suggestions there.

soap:

--- Quote from: rdtyphn on July 12, 2007, 07:52:15 PM ---... the interesting ways in which experts will shoot down poorly written requests for help or criticize any challenges to the status quo.
--- End quote ---
Groupthink can be a very dangerous and damaging condition, and can afflict organizations of all shapes and sizes.

(Soap is speaking for nobody but Soap)

That being said, groupthink primarily causes damage to business and managerial practices.  Rockbox isn't a commercial or service-sector company.  Rockbox has no commercial interests to endanger, no customers to lose, no employees to disgruntle.  What Rockbox is, though, is a dozen-headed hydra which only moves when the snouts all point (at least roughly) in one direction.  Because of this, groupthink is to be expected, if not encouraged, in many situations.

PS - I'd like to think ideas counter to the status quo get challenged, not criticized, but I know that is neither always the case, nor how well-meaning words often get interpreted.

cpchan:

--- Quote from: GodEater on July 12, 2007, 03:24:29 PM ---I like to think that most of us old hands try not to actually be condescending to people. It *does* get to the point sometimes when I really want to shout at someone who's posted here with the same dumb thing I've seen posted here 20 times before
--- End quote ---

I totally agree. I have had this experience many times on various mailing lists and forums. Sometimes I just want to resort to telling them to RTFM or STFW. I hate spoon feeding people- they will never learn anything from that.

Charles

Sherv:
Heh, how about only allowing new users to register after they pass a multiple-choice test based on the manual? :)

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