RE: Why questions don't get answered, or "No, I've already RTFM, tell me the answer!"

In response to the OP's subject question:

Reasons why one question gets a response and others do not:

1. No one that has read the question knows the answer. (Maybe waiting a
little longer will allow someone to read your question that knows the
answer. It's not like everyone subscribed to the list reads every
question as soon as it is posted, if ever.)

2. The question asked does not contain enough information to figure out
the problem. (A question should contain the following: A good subject,
brief description of what the OP is trying to do, the expected behavior,
and the observed behavior, copies of error messages or relevant portions
of log files. Include version information so we can tell if we have
similar systems, OS versions, application versions.)

3. The mailing list is not an official support system with operators
standing by, it is a group of users sharing information. Those that
answer posts do so out of their own generosity and willingness to
share. They are not required to do so.

4. A particular question may have been asked many many times and those
that respond may not feel inclined to respond yet again to the same
question. Answers to such questions can generally, not always, be found
using one of several search methods, a few that have been suggested in
this thread.

5. Many feel it is better to teach people how to fish instead of just
giving them a fish. By teaching people how to find solutions instead of
just "getting the answer" those people become a little more self
sufficient. It amazes me sometimes when it is obvious that the poster
had not done any trouble shooting at all and apparently does not know
how to even start trouble shooting the problem. By directing the poster
to resources that help them learn to break the problem down and solve
each piece they will be better for it. (I suspect that this results in
some of the RTFM responses that some receive.)

6. Alexander Dalloz is busy at the moment or finds your questions
uninteresting. (Just kidding Alexander :-) )

7. Some of the more knowledgeable users do not respond to questions that
don't follow list etiquette.

8. This mailing list has a huge volume, some questions will just get
lost in the volume since the one person that knows the answer might miss
reading it. This is particularly true of problems that are not common
to large numbers of users. And having lots of people respond that they
don't know the answer does nothing to help but increase the volume of
traffic.

9. It is obvious the poster had not done any research at all, when
others can google the posted error message and come up with relevant
responses in the first page it does not make sense for users to use the
mailing list as a remote control google tool.

10. It looks like the poster is trying to get others to do their
homework for them. :)



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