Re: Group Culture Question

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:07:03 -0700, Eric Jacobsen
<eric.jacobsen@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:55:28 -0800 (PST), HardySpicer
<gyansorova@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Feb 18, 3:24 am, "joncox" <jon...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I have a question regarding the culture of this group. I noticed there are
some beginners asking simple questions with only the desire to get pointed
in the right direction to start their learning process. However, typically
the response they get is rude, sarcastic and unhelpful.

What is with this? How can we as engineers be anti-learning/teaching? Is
this the legal profession? The attitude seems to be "if you don't know,
leave it to the professionals." I don't get it. This isn't engineering as I
know it...

Piss off!

I learned quite quickly how to ask a question on Usenet. One of the
first things I learned was how to use Deja News, er, "Google Groups"
to find threads where the topic had already been discused - this often
not only answered my question, but answered questions I didn't know to
ask, and provided a wealth of learning. It also helped me not ask so
many questions, which also greatly helped to cut down on the snarky
responses I got.

I swear there's a webpage that tells "how to ask a question on
Usenet."


lol

In addition to the numerous reasonable replies already given, I'll add
that sometimes what may seem to be an inappropriate response to a new
poster is really a conditioned response to a frequent poster who has
repeatedly failed to demonstrate an ability to grasp basic concepts
already explained.

Sometimes it's just misunderstandings due to poor English language
skills on the part of the poster,

And sometimes it's technical misunderstandings. I recall a poster
explicitly saying he only needed calculations to four significant
figures, but others in the thread were confused about the accuracy the
OP wanted because he copy/pasted a small data set of values, each to
15 or 20 significant figures, and so they were thinking based on that.

It's coming back to me now - that poster started two or three
related threads, it seemed he wasn't sure what he wanted or how to ask
about it, and it was getting frustrating. This is where stuff like the
following happens:

and sometimes (although I'd say
pretty rarely) there may be a genuinely rude response that wasn't
provoked. That's not to justify any rude or brusk responses, just
offer some explanation. This is, after all, unmoderated intartubes,
and as such comp.dsp is actually pretty civilized.

Over the years, one common response to a new poster becoming upset
over a rude response is "Welcome to Usenet." It's quite different from
web-based forums. They aren't just moderated, they're often heavily
moderated, being power trip for the owner/moderator - often saying the
"wrong thing" or saying it the wrong way can get you banned as well as
your posts deleted.

This very thing is even covered in the rec.audio.pro FAQ, question
1.9 (marked Q1.8 in the Table of Contents, but it's Q1.9 in the main
body):

http://recordist.com/rapfaq/


.

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