Re: [Easter ramblings]

On 12 May 2006, - Ejo entered spamcop and left 
news:[email protected]:

> What I normally do is to watch their behavior as I provide a clue...

Of course that's one of the biggest hurdles of the Internet, you can't see 
the person at the other end.

> To continue would be a waste of time, and in such situations you are as 
> a teacher better off in referring to the references, which is the 
> equivalent of the FAQ here. This way of handling questions really saves 
> me a lot of time on a day. Unless you want to become mister popularity 
> not being able to do other work required for research and admin.
> 

Teach people to help themselves... that's a good plan. I do see Mike refer 
to the FAQ at times. The classroom isn't a very good comparison, well some 
elements are, but it's the students job to do research and there are time 
constraints, that doesn't apply here. Not to speak for Mike as to why he 
does or doesn't, but I believe that links are often ignored, it may seem a 
bit odd but even I tend to ignore most links in newsgroup messages - 
probably because I don't come here just to go somewhere else to read an 
answer. And besides, I really hate reading stuff I've already read, so if 
someone's posted a bunch of links in their reply, especially without any 
summary, and I find I've read it all before and it hasn't changed any, it's 
really a big waste of my time. Links are good as a reference as in "as it 
says here [link] ..." and links often change or even disappear. References 
are good, but aren't always handy and aren't required for a passing grade.

I think you are right about being too wordy, though if you can't gauge the 
reader's response you have to take the middle ground, not too much and not 
too little. It's really tough to write a good tutorial, especially when one 
isn't required to comprehend it (as in a classroom).

-- 
| Ric
|