I asked a question on a forum about why a command wasn’t working. They said I didn’t have an interpreter installed on my computer and were making fun of me. I showed them that I had one installed and that wasn’t the problem, but they continued to talk sarcastically to me without explaining anything. Only one of them suggested the cause of the problem, and he was right, so I thanked him. Then another guy said that if I couldn’t figure it out myself, I should do something else and that he was tired of people like me. After that, I deleted my question, and now I’m not sure. And I don’t think I want to ask for help ever again

  • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    11·
    4 hours ago

    Asking questions is fine; asking without doing prior research is fine too.

    No one’s entitled to an answer & certainly not a polite one if they fail to show consideration for others by putting sensible effort themselves. That’s not called a doctorate, that’s called trying.

    Contrary to your opinion, those “assholes” may be doing OP a favor by pointing out the question is deficient. Most volunteers respond to an ineptly posed question by ignoring it. This is rational: which question would you rather answer?

    • A well-prepared question that hadn’t been answered before & that provides all the information relevant to answer it.
    • A poorly prepared question that requires the answerer to sink in significantly more resources with painful back-and-forth to elicit missing information & point out basic resources.

    Getting questions answered sooner by reducing the effort & pain to answer them is in everyone’s interest.

    Learning how to learn & ask questions well are indispensable skills. If you want to keep asking questions unintelligently, though, then you can expect to wear out the patience & good will of the volunteers answering them. Just as you are free to not try, everyone else is free & entitled to go full asshole on that bullshit.

    • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
      3·
      3 hours ago

      “Being mean to people is a good thing because it teaches them to [something]” is an indefensible sentiment.

      Yes, nobody is entitled to your answer to a question and you’re fine to just not answer any question you don’t want to. Being a dick about it, though, is actively harmful to both the person you’re being a dick to, and the community you’re participating in.

      It’s interesting that people defending being a dickhead so frequently fall back to accusations about intelligence. E.g.:

      If you want to keep asking questions unintelligently, though…

      For a group of people so very concerned with intelligence, I wonder if anyone has taken the time to explain to you the concept of emotional intelligence.