Re: I know what I mean. Why don't you?

(You may fix the problem yourself this way, but don't consider that a failure - even if you don't get any XP :-).)

Your post is wonderful advice, and yet, I wonder if the aside above isn't the crux of the issue? I'd imagine that if a would-be poster stopped to do these clarifying steps first, then 90% of the time the would-be poster could figure out the problem himself. The "challenge" for PM (if one wishes to see it that way) is that without all that effort, a problem posted to PM -- even poorly structured -- can usually get a decent answer.

That aspect of PM is the dark side of the laziness and impatience principles at work -- why take a bunch of time to solve my problem myself when the community will do it for me? Fortunately, PM takes advantage of another principle, hubris, where the community races to solve even poorly phrased or trivial problems to clamor for the acclamation of their worth via XP.

All of which is to say, yes, I appreciate the point of the post, but the people who read it and understand it and follow it aren't exactly going to be the same inexperienced posters who commit the original error, no?

-xdg

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Re^2: I know what I mean. Why don't you?
by QM (Parson) on Nov 22, 2005 at 17:20 UTC

All of which is to say, yes, I appreciate the point of the post, but the people who read it and understand it and follow it aren't exactly going to be the same inexperienced posters who commit the original error, no?

If no one bothered to put effort into questions, I'd soon get frustrated at yet another awful SOWP post, and probably ditch PM after some interval. And if no one is here to answer those awful SOWPs (except perhaps for awful writers of similarly terrible SOWPs), little if anything of value would be here in the first place. Which, I suppose, would solve the awful SOWP post problem, as PM would not have a reputation for adding value, and would only have visitors lost in the ether.

So yes, OPs like this are going to be missed by newcomers. One of our jobs as members of the PM community is to gently nudge newcomers with ways to be more effective here, and thus contribute more to the PM community, and get more out of it.

But I'm not a diaper-changer kinda person. Sure, I can do the odd diaper, wipe the odd green nose. After all, that was me once upon a time, and someone was patient with me, and I'd like to do the same. But I'm not interested in a whole community of adults who can't find the toilet on their own. If one of them forgets himself, or comes from the 3 shells culture instead, for the sake of the Perl Monks Hazardous Waste and Diaper Detail, I'll point him to OPs like this. Some people just need to be told.

-QM
--
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

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