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From: meta@pobox.com (mathew)
Subject: Re: in defense of newbies
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Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 02:23:21 GMT
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PPppybr <ppppybr@aol.com> wrote:
> First, the three-part RGIF FAQ is a rather daunting and overwhelming
> document. I remember that my first response to seeing it was: "Hell no!"
> Who can blame newbies for not wanting to even open it, much less plod
> through it, before they even know if they'll be frequenting RGIF?

Try walking into a bustling cocktail party, standing in the center of
the room, pulling your pants down and yelling "HEY! SOMEONE TELL ME
WHERE THE TOILETS ARE!"

The response might enlighten you as to the value of politeness.  Yes,
sometimes politeness means taking a couple of minutes of your time
instead of wasting a collective hour of everybody else's; nobody said
social graces came free.

Plus anyone who has the patience to play *text adventure games* surely
has the patience to skim-read the FAQ.

> Second, I'm not sure why it's such a sin for someone to ask for the
> address of the archive.

It's not.  The sinful part is asking *everybody* for the address,
without even taking basic steps to try and find it.  Like, say, taking
30 seconds to go to Google and type in "interactive fiction archive" or
"adventure game archive" or even "infocom archive", all of which result
in a clear pointer to the thing in the first handful of results.

> It certainly seems to me that it would be easier just to respond with the
> link, plus a note that the user can see the RGIF FAQ or the "Playing the
> IF Archive Games" FAQ for more info, rather than to rant about how sick
> the community is of having these basic questions asked repeatedly of
> newbies.

There's an old saying: "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, you feed him for life."

Though in this case a more appropriate saying might be "Find a man a
bucket, and he'll keep peeing in your living room.  Scold him gently and
teach him to find the bathroom, and you've solved the real problem."


mathew
[ "Occasionally blunt but always oh so quotable" ]
--
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~meta/>
