Let's not forget...

DenSter

...that once we were beginners.
...that some people don't speak English that well.

Lately I've been a bit frustrated by some people with the apparent lack of willingness to figure things out, just like everyone else in here. What I have seen though is that answers to these 'questions' are getting more and more disrespectful.

I want to point out that we need to be careful with the way we answer these questions (and that includes myself). It is not all 'lazyness' or 'stupidity' that drives people to ask questions. We have all asked questions without first searching the subject, so we need to be kind to others. It could very well be that these kids come right out of college into a job that nobody explains to them, and they have no direction whatsoever. Let's try and keep things positive and help people find what they need.

Try asking a question in a foreign language and see how 'stupid' you look. Please remember that English is a very difficult language to learn, and not all of us are good at it.

I'd like to propose that if we think a question is 'lazy' or 'stupid' to simply not answer the question, instead of telling people off. Report the topic to the admins, and they will take care of it. This has always been a very positive community, and I would be sad to see that turn around.

Alex_Chow

I agree with you completely.

I've been especially guilty of being rude to what I thought was a question that lacked depth.

Miklos_Hollender

OK, it seems we will have yet another passionate debate, because I completely don't agree To put it short, it's not about newbieness or lazyness, it's about the difference in having pride in one's work or just holding a "position" for the money.

I copy here what I've written to a topic which got closed:

"I think it goes deeper than that. Let's look a bit at the psychology of being an ERP analyst/developer.

This kind of job is all about building castles out of dry sh*t. Or in other words, despite the combined efforts of the vendor's stupidity and our client's stupidity, build something that works and is good. And there is one and only one personality attribute that can help you not getting disappointed, not giving up and deciding to blend in the mass of the 100000 faceless developers doing boring jobs, but keep on trying to make good ERP solutions: pride. Pride that we believe that we are a kind of "elite" (not in the literal sense of course) and despite all odds, we can make it into something good just as a kind of challenge. The ERP industry in general does not promise anything more than Churchill did: blood, sweat and tears - just look at the amazing Gartner Group figures that 35% of all projects fail outright and another 40% do not deliver the expected results. And why do we keep on? Out of pride. We want to show we can do better, we want to challenge the odds.

And if one has pride, one does not asks questions before doing a reasonable amount of research. Or sometimes he does, but not always. If one has pride, one always wants to show that he's not stupid, but just forgot or does not have the time to check some little detail.

If one does not have pride, if one does not want to challenge impossible odds, if one wants to be nurtured and looked after like a child, one does not belong in the ERP industry. ERP is an extreme sport.

Administrator, please do not bother BlackTiger about his direct and outspoken style towards knowledge vampires. I think many of us think similarly, only we do not say, for some reason or another. Those folks, their very existence in this profession is an insult to our pride. Not because they don't know much - we all were in this situation. But because they don't want to research, to experiment, to try to figure things out, because they lack the dedication, the cowboy mentality to challenge the odds.

But there is another thing. Please do NOT, any of us, neither Admin nor users, take this thing into a cultural/ethnical perspective. There are many great Indian developers. It's just by chance we managed to meet with the less great ones. I think in a few years they will come. Nowadays they are usually concentrating on Java instead of MS products."

Miklos_Hollender

About English. I also don't accept that. English is one the easiest languages to learn. A few hundred years ago, it was a MUST for every educated man to understand Latin, which is about ten times harder - I studied it at high school, and I was really a challenge. Nowadays the lingua franca is English, and it is a lot easier. I hope you don't want to mean that being smart and educated is not a requirement for this kind of job... And... you know, my mother tongue is NOT Indo-European (Hungarian is related to Finnish and Turkish, and some say, to Summerian). So I've been in a harder situation than most [1] of the members here. I still found it easy. Even though I know what I speak is far from being real English - real English starts at the linguistic quality of National Review or something like that - but some lousy international pidgin-English. Real English is hard, but this kind of international-English is probably the easiest any language can get.

Do we really want our ranks washed up by folks who cannot make the smallest of efforts? To spend at least 20 minutes with an online dictionary to make a post not look like something written by a 13 years old IRC-kiddie? (I'm thinking of the usual "can u teach me how 2 hack" IRC-kids.) What do you expect? Do you think this professions is for everybody? Remember the aforementioned Gartner Group figures? Do we want more blown implementations, because it's done by people who don't even want to make the effort to spend 20 minutes with an online dictionary on a post? What kind of pride do they have? And what quality of work will the provide, even if given all the help?

[1] Remember that the first part of Indo-European is "Indo".

DenSter

Tell me what is more insulting:
A: explain FORM.RUNMODAL
B: lazy bast-ds must die!

Personally I am not in the least bit offended if someone asks a question that can be answered by a tiny bit of research, but remarks like the second one are unwarranted vicious personal attacks that have no place in this forum.

There is absolutely no reason to call people names just because they have a different work ethic. It is uncalled for, unnecessary, and it only creates a negative atmosphere. Not to mention it takes valuable time away from otherwise busy lives.

All that I am asking of everyone is to think about it. If you don't want to answer a certain question, just don't answer the question. Life is too short to be negative.

Miklos_Hollender

Insulting to what? To the pride I described above, the first one. But this example isn't very good - this question is in the acceptable range, there were much worse ones.

But OK. Let's start from the common ground. We both want to help people, right? Now, if I look back to my life up to now, I can thank the most to those people who haven't been exactly kind to me, but gave a well-placed kick in the butt when I was lazy, played roles or when I whined too much. This tended to wake me up and at look at things from a different perspective. Sometimes it's not the kindest, gentlest approach that helps the most. It's same thing like the best fathers do throw their children in the deep swimming pools in order to learn to swim, because if they manage it, they will feel sooooo self-confident and happy, so it does a lot of good for them. (Of course they don't do it mindlessly, they only do it if he is mature enough and they are always around to help if he cannot manage it. I don't praise mindless redneck behaviour, but I do praise the planned, smart lack of gentleness or politeness or comforting when one feels it's necessary. ) (And this is exactly the reason I politically turned quite conservative but I won't write more about that, because I think Luc would cut me into pieces with a battleaxe if I started a political rant here so if anybody is interested, send me a private message.) In short, comforting somebody and doing lasting good to somebody are often quite different things. I think being polite to people who are obviously incapable of this kind of stuff just prolonges their suffering. I think if BlackTiger scares some of them off, ten years later they will thank it.

DenSter

This post is not about whether English is difficult to learn, it is about showing some respect to people who don't speak it very well.

It is quite generally accepted by international linguists that Japanese and English are the most difficult languages to learn by someone who does not speak a related languages natively. Let's go to the middle and agree that it is difficult to learn any foreign language. Not to learn a few words but to speak it to such an extent that you can ask technical questions.

DenSter

I agree that sometimes people need a kick in the behind. I also agree that you have to be firm sometimes. I just think we should be respectful toward eachother in this forum and leave out the insults.

If you feel someone would benefit more by reading a section in the adg than to spell out the solution, tell them to read the adg. If all you can think to say is 'you are a lazy bastard' then don't reply at all.

Miklos_Hollender

No, it's about a general message. I think one needs to broadcast a message like "I take pride in what I do. I'm not stupid and not lazy. Therefore I spend 20 minutes with an online dictionary to show that I am able to put some energy in something and also to show respect to people I'm asking."

Well, I don't know much about international linguistics. All I know that structures like "about the length of our old flutes" are a hell hard in Latin or German grammatics and quite easy in English. Of course on the professional level it's very hard, because the smallest intelligible unit is not the word, but the expression or the sentence. But I was not talking about that level. But who cares if it's hard? It's just the first filter. It's the smallest of obstacles to beat. Many harder ones await on the road.

Miklos_Hollender

One other remard. Even if someone cannot speak proper English, at least using proper punctuation - commas, question marks and so on - and starting sentences with capital letters is too much to ask? If someone lacks the education for that, how can he hope to conquer a job one of the hardest ones?

Luc_VanDyck

It's out of the question to answer messages in a rude way! It doesn't matter if the person who asks the (in-your-eyes) "wrong" question, is a beginner, not fluently in English or comes from a non-US country.

We are here, participating in this forum, to help others and to get helped when we are stuck. Nevertheless, when one writes down a new question, one should first think "Am I really the first person who is dealing with this? Is this really the first time this topic comes up among the +55000 articles this forum contains?". If you are not sure about the answer, then you SHOULD use the Search function.

For example: until 2 weeks ago, I didn't know anything about Views, Linked Tables and executing a stored procedure from inside Navision. But with the Search function (and using the right search keywords) I got several topics describing the same kind of question and showing some examples. Off course, the examples given where not 100% useable in the given format, but at least they showed me the direction I had to follow.

And I understand not everyone can write English error-free. But at least, when one expects a response to his/her question, one should formulate a descriptive Subject. Nobody wants to read a list of topic titles like "Plz reply", "Urgent question", "Cal" or "Form". As the forum gets more and more members, and more and more topics are being created every day, everyone will benefit from topic titles which are clear and descriptive.

To end this message, I want to say that messages as recently posted by BlackTiger, are not tolerated! We are not going to insult people here. Find another place, maybe in your backyard, but not in this forum!

Alex_Chow

If you find a question that is being asked that is "retarded" or "stupid", does it hurt so much to NOT respond to it?

The question in itself is neither good or bad. What you find insulting to your intelligence does not necessary mean that everyone in the world find it insulting to their intelligence.

Miklos_Hollender

Not answering does not help. An outspoken answer that makes one rethink his general approach can help.

DenSter

From now on I am going to follow my own self imposed rule. There are two things that I will post in here:
1: answers to questions
2: good spirited off topic remarks

If I have anyhting else in the box, I will not click the submit button.

Savatage

In general it was a bunch of posts lately that started this whole thing. Overall, the site runs fine and everyone is nice.

Miklos_Hollender

Luc,

I think it could be a good idea for you to separate your personal view on this subject and your official owner/admin view on moderation. Because the first one could be subject to debate, and the later one would be pointless to debate.

Alex_Chow

Miklos Hollender wrote:

Not answering does not help. An outspoken answer that makes one rethink his general approach can help.

Hopefully, your "outspoken answers" are respectful to your fellow humans.

Miklos_Hollender

I don't really like repeating myself, but still the only thing I can say is that there are some people I'm very grateful to BECAUSE they haven't been respectful to me, but placed some kicks in my butt when I deserved it.

Sometimes I think our modern societies are getting too soft. We often take politeness, respect, comfort or kindness in too high regard and forget the cases - like the role of the surgeon or the role of the soldier as some extreme case just for example - when doing good is different from doing soft.

Luc_VanDyck

Miklos Hollender wrote:

I don't really like repeating myself, but still the only thing I can say is that there are some people I'm very grateful to BECAUSE they haven't been respectful to me, but placed some kicks in my butt when I deserved it.

Yes, you definitely are repeating yourself. Let's agree that we don't agree on this subject.

Marije_Brummel

Hmm,

I always try to stay positive in my postings, I don;t know if I succeed in that but I try. :oops:

When I started posting, which is only a year ago, I also learned that when you don't have something usefull to post, then just don;t post. O:)

That makes me wounder if this post if worth submitting.

Oh, what the h*ll.

Banzai. 8)

PS. Good thing to start this one Daniel =D>

kriki

Mark Brummel wrote:

Hmm,

I always try to stay positive in my postings, I don;t know if I succeed in that but I try. :oops:

When I started posting, which is only a year ago, I also learned that when you don't have something usefull to post, then just don;t post. O:)

That makes me wounder if this post if worth submitting.

Oh, what the h*ll.

Banzai. 8)

PS. Good thing to start this one Daniel =D>

I can give 2 reasons because your post was worth submitting (the same 2 reasons for my own post).
1) In the whole topic, no one wrote that if a post is not usefull, don't post it. At least someone wrote it. And some time ago, I got to the same conclusion. And sometimes i start replying and at the end I think:Is this post usefull? and if I reply no, then I don't post it.
2) Sometimes is it is usefull to write that you agree with someone. Specially in cases where no mathematical wrong or correct answer exists.

Miklos_Hollender

Luc:

OK. After all, Rule 7 is a well working filter in 70% of the cases.

daws

I think the link below to a blog from David Singleton puts things into perspective about the posts that have been the source of this discussion.

I hope the link below is public.

http://dynamicsusers.org/blogs/singleton/archive/2006/07/28/2938.aspx

Regards
Phil Dawson

DenSter

No that is not the source of this thread at all

daws

DenSter wrote:

No that is not the source of this thread at all

Fair enough - but a decent chiunk of the so called "Stupid Questions" probably fit into the category of questions David refers to in his blog.

kine

Example of answers:

Q:"Hi All,
Please send me the answers..................

1. What is Static & Dynamic filter?? Difference between them??Where do we set these??
..."

A1: "Are you kidding us? Stop bs-ing us! Enough! Go back to school! ..."

A2: "Please, check documentation in file ... on your product CD" or "I recommend to buy the manual XXX from Microsoft"

A3: <without answering>

And now, say me, which answer is not correct and why? ;-) Why you cannot use A2 or A3 instead A1? Or you can? 8)

How you can say that this question is stupid and that the member who send this question is lazy or stupid? For example, for me it seems like he thought about the question, he knows how he will answer that, but he just needs to be sure he has correct answers.

Miklos_Hollender

What I really don't understand is questions like "Where can I find training materials?" "Where can I download language packs?" and so on. Is it possible that they don't have an appointed partner manager at the local MS? Inquiring about add-ons is also strange a bit - the partner managers don't send it to partners?