Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!tale From: tale@pawl.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Re: Telling people to Read The F Manual Message-ID: <1989Sep25.205459.28308@rpi.edu> Date: 25 Sep 89 20:54:59 GMT References: <14695@bfmny0.UU.NET> <130@ubbs-nh.MV.COM> <14729@bfmny0.UU.NET> Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY Lines: 18 In <14729@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: Tom> Or mail, yes MAIL the guy a kind request to RTFM before posting? Here is something that many of us perceive to be a big problem with RTFM postings. Do you really believe that RTFM is a kind request? It is neither; it is an imperative and a rude one at that. If, for example, a consultant here was approached with a question and the client was told to "read the fucking manual", that consultant would certainly be in more than a little hot water. What? The F doesn't necessarily mean that? Regardless, it usually does, whether that's the way it was intended or that's the way it was taken. There are better ways to point someone to a manual than using this tremendously overused acronym. If you want to be helpful, try being polite too. Help goes beyond just providing pointers to answers. Dave -- (setq mail '("tale@pawl.rpi.edu" "tale@itsgw.rpi.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))