Re: [exim] Don't be rude to people asking questions

Marc Perkel wrote:
> There are a lot of arrogant people on this list that like to hassle
> people with legitimate questions. If someone wants to know how to
> do something then they want to know how to do it. If people don't
> have the answer they shouldn't respond with "you don't want to know
> that" because if that were true they wouldn't be asking the question
> in the first place.

People on the list don't respond "you don't want to know that," people respond "I don't recommend that you do that."

It's not based on the fact that they don't know the answer to the question, it's based on the fact that they believe it is not a wise thing to do, often from having been down that road before themselves in one way or another.

By asking a question, you are making an admission that you don't know all there is to know about the topic at hand. So why get offended when someone tries to share a perspective on the topic that maybe you didn't think about, even if that perspective is that the premise behind your question is ill-founded? Perhaps sometimes it is. If it's not, can't you simply ignore the response instead of arguing with it?

It seems to me that the "burden of humility" should be on the person asking for assistance, not the person providing it. I think that your response above is actually more arrogant than what you are complaining about.

Suppose someone on an automobile-related list asked the question "how do I modify the filler on my gasoline/petrol vehicle so that I can insert the diesel fuel nozzle?" I suppose that someone on the list could reply with the proper size drill to use to increase the size of the hole in the filler restrictor to accomodate the diesel nozzle. But is that really the best answer, even though it is exactly the answer to the question asked?

David