Use me, but use me effectively
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2005-03-16 08:25:39 - Graham EllisHave a question on an Open Source language that you can't find an answer to? In another walk of life, want to know about a travel and transport topic? Please feel free to ask and I'm only too happy to come back with comments, suggestions, pointers. I enjoy doing so - please do use me.
However, there are just a few occasions where I feel that use has lead on to ABuse.
A couple of hours back, I got a request for some help on Tcl; fine, happy to help - except that the same request arrived in two different ways ... to two different addresses that I don't think that my writer would have been able to associate. I felt - let's find wording - spammed with the question. And it lead me to wonder "If I've been asked twice, I wonder how many other people have been asked". No indication in the message that he was asking all around - it was worded as if it was individually done. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I've written back and asked my correspondent how many people he's asked the question of, and suggested that lets me know again, and more personally, in a few days if he doesn't get an answer to his questions from any of them ... it's just not an effective use of my time to be answering questions that someone else has also answered and are no longer of interest.
I also start to get concerned when I'm being asked for so much (free) advise that the requester would be far better off to spend a few days attending a course - especially as we actually run courses and that's how we make our living. The British "reserve" is great, but just occasionally I feel like saying to someone "hey - play fair - I've got to earn a living too" ...
For the remaining 99% of you, happy and delighted to answer those odd little questions that crop up from time to time, or give you a few thoughts on how "this" or "that" should be done. And if that's after one of our courses I'm double delighted and well into the spirit.