Outlaw RTF(reindly)M?

A lot of people have a lot to say about the "all purpose newbie stomper" RTFM. Should we "outlaw" RTFM and try to be more patient with people, or is it perfectly appropriate to use RTFM when someone doesn't seem to have RTFM? What about other responses to replace it? What about people who give no indication that they've looked for help on their own?

No, rtfm is a perfectly correct answer for some questions, and it should not be outlawed in any way. It us up to the person whether to use RTFM! or 'read the manual please, here's the link' and there is no correct or wrong answer of that sort.

i believe there's already too much censorship going on in the forums. rtfm is a perfectly valid reply; granted that it can be quite rude sometimes, but, people also need to hear it from time to time.

Where exactly is there censorship? Have you seen threads deleted by folks other than thier owners?

I've heard this gripe in a couple of places, and I don't think it has merit. Being reminded about forum etiquette is not censorship, an admin deleting posts would be. I know I only delete obvious spam posts.

Again those that receive such a statement deserve it. Not because they are total assholes but because, well yes, that's why. Those that should had RTFM in the first place are usually leechers that only ask questions and never give back.

Not using it for first-time newbies is ok since some of them come from a win world where it's possible to figure out things by just browsing the interface but if it's repetitive, again, they deserve it (not like if it was a punishement!). This type of newbie should be educated first.

Hmmm.. We have the wisdom of two "heavy-weights" and some regulars and everyone says it's OK. As for the censorship gripe, I'm not really seeing it.

While I agree that RTFM is an appropriate response (though I would prefer that people point to the manual in some way, even if only telling the individual to go read the forum sticky), I think it's a two-way street. Being rude for the sake of being rude or ignorant is not helpful behavior in any way for anyone - whether it be long timers on the boards (which I'm hoping to be one of someday) or newbies looking to slip in the door. By roughly chastising people who make a boo-boo, we may be eliminating potential friends who will some day have something to give back to the community. When I first started wading into the perl form, as Hero may remember, I asked some dumb questions from time to time. But people helped me out (even if, like FreeBSD, they shouted me down first ) and now I'm getting ready to start moving through 'perlguts' - no small step for someone who previously had no worthwhile *nix experience and only knew some basic Javascript. I probably wouldn't have been able to do it without the help I received here. Had I gotten downright mean comments when I faltered, I may not have come back. Before I came here, I almost NEVER used google! Now I (try to ) answer way more questions in the perl forum than I ask.

I have taken a policy of infinite leniency with people who stay on topic in the Beginners forum, no matter how simplistic the question or how many times it's been answered. I see that as an opportunity to point the way to manuals to someone who took the time to notice that they are a Beginner in the topic they are posting on, and they shouldn't post the question in PHP, perl, etc. I myself post questions there from time to time because I realize they are simple and I just can't seem to get to the meat of the problem for some reason.

However, I have a policy of limited leniency for others. People who continually post common questions again and again in the other forums are nothing but leeches who are too lazy to do their own work. First-time offenders get links and a "do your own work first" warning. Similarly, people who post stuff like "I have this problem and I get an error, why?" get snippy condemnations, but also requests for more information for a chance at redemption.

I don't know - maybe it's just me, but I think that the whole "hacker mindset" is a good thing in some aspects, but in a community like this we sort of need to drop our guards from time to time and guide people who have the potential to add something useful - even if we choose to guide them rather... "gruffly". If they come back after the warning or snappy response, they really want to learn, if not, they probably wanted to leech. I guess I have to say RTFM is perfectly acceptable, and for the people who think it's not... well they can start answering all the leech questions or start RingTFM so they don't hear it anymore

ctb - Amen to that...

//NoXcuz

Gotta agree with CTB on this one.
It's not nice to people who generally need help and have tried their hardest to find a solution but then the effort they have put in will usually show in how they write their posts so don't generally get RTFM'd!

Its lazy people with questions like "How do I add a user..." thats just unacceptable, as typing that exact quesrion in google or any Linux forum will provide a suitable answer.

One thing I want to point out is that the same group that's quick to shout, "RTFM!" is usually the same group that supplies the MOST information to certain *ahem* female users that ask questions like, "how do I add a user?"


I think RTFM is obnoxious and not always appropriate. Often times, someone asking a question can't grasp the gist of what exactly the problem is that they're facing, so something that may be glaringly obvious to an expert may not be so obvious to the question asker. He may not even know the proper keywords to search with on Google because he doesn't understand the framework within which he's working.

If someone refuses to do any work for themselves, send them a link to the manual and then don't help them anymore.

But the problem I have is when someone comes into the thread and the very first response after their post is RTFM!!!

I have to admit though that freebsd's answers are hilarious, though he's extremly brilliant and his posts are always helpful.

But no, there is no need to formally censor it.

One thing to think about, do you shout "RTFM!" to your coworkers?

--> People are hired for their skills, and fired for their pesonalities.

RTFM is a rude an inappropriate response to most posts. Chances are, if I read a response like that from someone reapeatedly, I'll not only start to ignore the person who asked the question, but also the person who replied with the rtfm answer. Someone who posts repeatedly questions and shows no initiative to find the answers themselves though...well, I just ignore them.

Think back to when you were learning your first bit of your first language, sometimes the hardest barrier to overcome was knowing there was a manual, but not knowing where to look or how to search. That was the most frustrating thing for me. I remember having these huge reference materials, but not knowing what the name of what I wanted to do was, or even how/where to look. I only wish I had access to forums like these to push me in the right direction at the time.

Post a LINK to the appropriate place in the manual, and the user will at least start to learn where to look for the answers, and maybe even how to look for them.

Giving an answer isn't going to help them in future problems. Telling them to simply read the 'friendly' manual isn't going to help them either. Giving them suggestions, and showing them where/how to find the answers is probably the most valuable post a newbie question can get.

I agree with the last 5 posts, however posting a link involves opening a new window and look for the appropriate sticky or url which is time consuming.

<shameless suggestion ahead>Now if there would be a macro to do just this! </shameless>

My policy, generally, is to help those who show that they want to learn. These folks are usually going to be more tolerant of an RTFM answer anyway. I'm also shy about giving out a lot of code, partially because of self conciousness and because the only way to become a good coder is to write a lot of code (meaning, let folks figure it out themselves. . .)

A lot of newcomers come from a Win32 background where on-computer/on-line documentation sucks so hard it blows. Giving a repeated RTFM-to-the-head is a service for some folks, it can give them the attitude adjustment necessary to realize they can mostly figure stuff out themselves. For me, it's about empowerment, not about blowing folks off. (Ok, it's partially about blowing folks off, too. My time is valuable to me.)

I wish I had the time to have a policy of infinite leniency, but I don't. Funny, Ctb may be an excellent example where repeated RTFM's had the desired (a||e)ffect of created an empowered programmer. . . Or I'm reading WAY too much into it.
Interesting thread!

And I'm a big fan of linking directly to the documentation that you think is relevant to someone's problem, I do it all the time (with mozilla, you can define keywords for bookmarks- for me, 'pod' is www.perldoc.com, 'mysql' is the docs for you-know-what, etc. Very nice feature!!!).

Yeah, I'm 100% for it, even though I've rarely ever used it. I like to reserve it for the real idiots...

---John Holmes...