Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion

Unfriendly responses to newbie questions?

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Llorean:
That's basically the idea here, yes - help the people who actually need help and tell the people who haven't showed that they tried to help themselves that they need to do a bit of basic footwork first.

It takes less time to type "check the manual" when you know the answer's in the manual but don't know the exact details because you don't use the feature than it does to read the manual and rewrite that section for the person. If they'd already checked the manual, they should say "the manual says to do X but I don't understand what it means" at which case someone who does know how to use the feature can attempt to clarify.

Hillshum:
One other issue I have seen is that sometimes the responses to minor rule violations have seemed a bit on the harsh side.

Llorean:
I would think that warning them rather than expecting them to actually live up to their side of the agreement they agreed to would be considered lenient rather than harsh.

I mean, we could just actually enforce things without giving warnings, right?

A warning that makes it absolutely clear we really do expect the rules to be enforced is preferable to having to make several less clear warnings because the person doesn't actually realize we're serious about these guidelines.

ej0rge:
Here's the thing: It's often easy to be charitable to one person. And sometimes, even that can give you regrets.

But we're operating in a scenario where it's not just one person - it's lots of people. Not everyone who turns up with a need will get a charitable response because there just isn't enough to go around. Most of them would be better off helping themselves. Many are turned away. Many who are served are underserved. It quickly becomes an ugly situation. It's the same in any situation where the need far outstretches the available help.

All solutions to the social problem at hand are unpleasant in some fashion, but a few of them allow the project to progress despite the unpleasantness.

I could try to help everyone who has trouble installing on a Gigabeat S. I've repaired about 8 of the things and been through the wringer with them over and over - I know how to solve their problems.

But the truth is that rockbox on the beast is not really ready for general consumption. If someone really needs hand-holding to get it going, they're probably better off waiting in the long run. And it's often true in these scenarios that one good turn demands another and another.

And like any other developer-driven free software - it's not for everyone. It's unfortunate but unavoidable that the number of people who could enjoy it's use is larger than the number of people who can reliably and successfully use it.

I'm in the uncomfortable position of being largely technically adept but not a coder. For some reason I'm not able to visualize solutions to problems the way that is required to write program source code. I failed several programming classes before i came to terms with that. There is much i understand about the development process, but i stink at it, and i don't even enjoy trying.

Instead, I'm a software quality analyst. Ironically, the two bugs I've submitted for rockbox are total crap.

My problem with these forums is that i don't know if I'm contributing anything positive or just pissing people off. Sometimes I'm certain, in retrospect, that I've only annoyed people. As a tester with about 8 years of professional experience, I am accutely aware that bug reports are only genuinely useful within particular windows of time that are both short and very specific to the issues at hand, and at all other times are mostly just noise.

This is a social system that wasn't designed to accomodate newbies. It's unfortunate but unavoidable that it fails to accomodate them.

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