Re: Can Either of These be Legal HTML?




Harlan Messinger wrote:

Guy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> wrote:

When asking for free help from known experts, refusing to give those
experts what they say they need in order to help you may give you a
sense of self rightiousness, but it won't get you any help.

I didn't say anything about refusing to give "known experts" what they
say they need in order to help. I'm talking about experts (whether
genuine or self-styled) who decide to make innocent people jump through
hoops that are unnecessary to answer their particular question because
it makes them feel important.

The two statements are equivalent. All you did was reword the first
statement to contain an assertion that you know better than the
person who has the answers what he needs in order to answer. You
may very well be correct, but that doesn't matter because you aren't
the one offering free help, and thus your opinions abot what the
person who is offering the free help needs do not matter.

(Are you saying you ARE the kind of person who would ask the
person with the football question for a video of an entire match?)

Yes! Assuming that I don't know the answer, that someone who
I know to be an expert does know the answer, that the expert
is willing to answer for free, and that the expert says that
he needs to see a video of the entire match in order to give
me a good answer, I would't assume, as you do, that I know
more about what he needs than he does. Even if I was 100% sure
that he doesn't need what he says he needs, I would *still*
give it to him because not doing so would be likely to result
in him refusing to give me free advice -- and rightly so.

Please read [ www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html ].

I have no need to read this,

In my opinion, you have a rather large need to read it. Refusing
only hurts you, so I won't bother you with the suggestion again.


--
Guy Macon
<http://www.GuyMacon.com/>

.