Fwd: Re: [Wine]re:re:HELP

[Dennis]

Hello, Joao,

I do not normally answer these mails because first I think it doesn´t
help to solve the problem and second it even gives fuel to the fire
already burning in this discussion. But your answer needs to be
commented, just to make sure that you understand what it´s all about
here.

> you know Alexander? You are wrong. 
This is the first thing which certainly sounds quite offending. It´s
your right to express yourself this way, but there are better ways to
say somethink similiar. Just think about putting something like "I think
that you are wrong" in this sentence,

> I think nobody is not respecting
> anyone's time, if you hadn't time you would not even answer.
Basically, you are right in this point. But do not forget that the
people answering in mailing lists are doing this in their free time and
they might quite kind of mad if somebody wanting help does not accept
the general way of behaviour in such support forums. Never forget that
other people do a paid job in the support industry - and we here work
for free. So please accept that Alexander just wanted to make sure what
are the basics here.

> And in fact the man is absolutely right. There is no place for
> beginner to get a clue and still worse when they ask (or dare to say
> something to the mighty guru) they get shitty offending answers like
> yours.
I think that you are wrong here. Alexander did not reply with a "shitty
answer" but with one which contained two main points:
1. We all do this for free here (see above). We all want to help people,
but I think that it is important to be polite (on both question and
answering side) to be able to build up a good contact and support forum
here
2. He was absolutely right in saying :"describe your problems properly
(not just whining "wine does not work" and waiting, that someone will
pull the details out of your nose)". The main essence of the question
from TKD here was that he couldn´t get wine running. This is quite the
same as "I have a car and when I try to start it, nothing happens.
Please help me and send me directly an answer what I have to do". In my
example, it could be a lack of fuel, it could be something in the engine
itself or one million more things. So please finally understand that we
can´t help anybody here if we don´t get details about the problem. 
I must admit that sometimes, the people answering here must also
understand that the ones mailing problems here are beginners and do not
know how to send it the output containg problems to the mailing list.
But I suppose this problem may easily be solved via polite answers on
the one side and with google on the other one (just look on
http://www.google.com/linux).
 

> Most people do not spend time and make money with programming like
> you and me, they need to spend their time to make money in other
> ways and do not have time left for reading manuals. 
This is one very important point which is understood the wrong way most
of the time. First, all the people answering here have certainly their
jobs - I suppose without a job, nobody here could afford the hardware
(e.g. computer) neccessary for getting and replying to questions. 

What concerns manuals (and this is something very important!): I think
that I have a certain expierence with people and technological things.
As far as I can see, the problem with manuals are not only related to
computers but also to other things of everyday´s life: Everyone seems to
think that in our hi-tech-time, these things are working without having
read a single manual. This is right as long as you do not need the
electronic device for fulfilling important tasks. If you do have to
REALLY work with it, it´s the better choice to look in a manual. I do
admit that manuals may be very big, but you just have to read the
chapters related to your problem. I do not know why people nowadays
believe that they can understand each device without even having read
one single page of the manual, but my expierence shows clearly that
people I advised to at least look in a manual are quite suprised that
many problems can be solved this way. 
What concerns your point that you do not have the time to read a manual:
So you really think that it´s our (I mean the people answering here)
task to read the manual for you, reproducing your problem on our
machines and to give you a short an good answer? This is certainly NOT
the way it should work. When somebody tells you to look in a manual,
don´t give back answers such as "I don´t have the time. You do not give
direct answers here and that´s why they´re shitty". We mostly spend our
FREE TIME helping people here - and the advice to read a manual is NOT
meant unpolite, but as a point in helping you to find a way helping
yourself. And I do not know how you make your money, but I do suppose
that your job wouldn´t work well without any documentation - and manuals
are documentation!!!

> I personally
> (even if you are basicly right) think it is a null answer sending
> somebody reading man or faq or books. That does not help anything.
See above.

> In fact windows success is that you do not need to read a word and
> that you can learn it at any school. 
No, that´s not true! You just know how to use windows because somebody
told you how to use it. And this somebody certainly read a manual to
archive two points:
1. to be able to help other people
2. to show that he has deep knowledge of the operation system
Example: If you want to make a circular letter with MS Word, you can
just click on some menus and you´ll get to your goal sooner or later.
But you ARE more productive (=quicker) if you read a manual or somebody
showed you how this function can be used quickly. And circular letters
is a basic function - now think about more difficult ones. 

> There *nix is far behind. It
> does not help a bit that we know (or say) *nix is better and on the
> other side we offend newcomers sending them to shut up.
I suggest that if you want to know something about this, you should inform yourself on the background of open source.

I hope that now you understand a few points often discussed here.

Cheers,
Mike