On the desirability of repetitious posts [DANGER -- PHILOSOPHICAL]

[hedley_finger@xxxxxxxxxxx]

At various times novices and others post queries to these lists along the
lines of "How do I framitz the bojjum in the stiglend?" only to be met with
outraged cries of "This issue was posted and resolved in the last few [ ]
minutes  [ ] hours  [ ] days  [ ] weeks  [ ] months [ ] the archive,
dumbbo."  {Pick one}

Rather than being annoyed by repetitious requests, we should be tolerant
and even grateful.  After all, we were all novices once and asked equally
dumb questions of our tolerant elders so should at least be willing to pass
on our hard-won wisdom.

More importantly, if various Adobe contributors find these repetitious
requests vexatious, they might just prompt them to ask:

@  "Does the Index of the User Guide allow the reader to quickly find this
issue?"
@  "Is the explanation in the User Guide clear, accurate, and easy to
follow? Are any prerequisites or dependencies adequately signposted?"
@  "Is the user interface sufficiently well-designed to allow the task to
be accomplished easily?"
@  "Should a new function be added to FM to allow this task to be
performed?"

Time for a cup of tea and a good lie-down; all this philosophising is
fatiguing.

Regards,
Hedley

--
Subscribe to Free Framers -- send this message
      subscribe framers your@email.address
to <mailto:majordomo@omsys.com?Subject=Subscribe%20Free%20Framers>

Hedley Finger
Technical Communications/Technical communicator and FrameMaker mentor
MYOB Australia <http://www.myob.com.au/>
P.O. box 371   Blackburn VIC 3130   Australia
<mailto:hedley_finger@myob.com.au>
Tel. +61 3 9894 0945
Mob. +61 412 461 558


** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@omsys.com **
** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.   **