matthewthornton.info

In my current job, I’m having to learn about the language Python so I am once in a while forced to go onto forums or read forums as a result of a google search to figure out the ins and outs of the language.  I dread doing this because people just become real idiots on forums.  The übergeek mentality comes to life.

Now, my good geek friends, I know that you are socially inadequate and are incapable of communicating effectively to people who don’t measure up to your high standards so please allow me to give you a couple of simple list of things you can do to improve your forum posts.  All of these pretty much boil down to the first rule:

1.  Your response to a question should first and foremost include a) an answer, b) a request for more information.  If you chose to add additional content for context or clarification, that’s fine.  But your response should be guiding the person in the right direction.

All of the other rules sort of feed back into this one.

2.  Do not sagefully suggest an alternative solution:  say none of the following:  “Don’t do it that way.  Do it this way.”, “That’s a stupid way of doing it.”  “It’s too hard to do it this way.  Try it this way.”  You have no, did you hear me?  NO way of knowing why the person is asking the question.  Maybe they’re using a design approach that requires the path they’re taking.  Maybe it’s an intellectual exercise for them.  Maybe they’re a schizophrenic, homicidal programmer and the voices are telling him to write their program a certain way.  Do you really want this guy hunting you down because you think they should use a for loop instead of a while loop?

3.  Do not take a person’s question as an opportunity to begin a flame war.  The person is not asking for your diatribe on the evils of using lambda instead of defining all your functions in Python.  The person is not asking for other posters to chime in on why lambdas are good.  This person has a 5:00 deadline and is needing to know or he could lose the contract, his job, and his house.

4.  Theory is great.  I love the back story of things.  However, it goes *after* you answer the question.

5.  Hey, Nurse Ratched!  Yeah, you!  Posting in the wrong folder on a forum, despite what you may believe, is NOT the end of the world.  The post is not McMurphy.  They’re lost.  They’re coming for guidance.  In this Web 2.0 world, everything is sort of uncategorized anyways.  Everything is “tagged”.  We’ll find it.  If there is a strong need to maintain a organized forum, follow rule 1 (answer the question) and then after that, remind tell the person where to post questions like that in the future.

I hope this has helped the trolls among you whose only joy in life is being a bully and a hotshot in cyberspace.  I’ve seen enough of you all and, frankly, am not nearly as impressed with you as you think I should be.