[ic] The Interchange-Users Owners' Club

[Jim Balcom]

On Mon, 17 Dec 2001, AddAction New Media wrote:

ANM>>It is a pity that some people on this list that know a lot about Interchange
ANM>>only like to answer the "interesting" questions and not those that are
ANM>>simple (at least for them). Doing a search does not always bring the right
ANM>>answer, even if it has been asked and answered many times, because it might
ANM>>be in bits and pieces. And then someone with a simple question might get
ANM>>frustrated that nobody answers that question.

You are rather incorrect in that assumption. I will answer any question
where it relates to something that I have dealt with personally, provided
that I can understand the question, and provided that I don't have to wade
through a half dozen screenfuls of stuff to get to the meat of the problem.

I will, however, ignore the 'easy' questions - "I don't know my password to
get into the Admin section." That was covered excellently during the Makecat
experience and it's also been covered many times on this list.

The help that I gave Chad the other day was, to me, meaningful help. I
guided him to the chapter in the docs that covered the shipping he wanted to
do. Yes, I could have written it all out for him. But, I have a tendency to
get to thinking faster than I type and I leave out words - which would give
him the wrong information. This way, if something does not go right, it's
not my fault - it's the fault of the authors of the doc's. It also exposed
him to some alternatives that might have served him better. Or, at a
minimum, shown him where and what information is there for future projects.

Referring people to the docs means that I have shown them a direction to go
in, and if it's wrong information then I am not the one giving them bad
information.

Mr. Burt took me to task because I didn't know the answer, but knew that I
had seen it on the list recently and tried to steer him in that direction.
He felt that I should have researched it for him and given him the answer,
rather than for him to work for it. Rather, he spends his research time
digging through 5+ years of Fidonet messages and jumping to erroneous
conclusions about me. So, that's probably not a valid way to try to help
people. I'll not do it again.


-= Jim =-

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Jim's Linux-Operated Underground Bomb Shelter

Tagline for Monday, December 17, 2001 at 17:30 PM:
It took my cat a month to fully train me.

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