Why do people insist on answering questions with unhelpful commentary

[chamerjr]

I wanted to start this thread as a way to help make the open source community more open. Has anyone ever asked a question on some forum or another about how to do something and instead of receiving answers or even "I don't knows", are responded to "why do you want to do that?" or "you shouldn't do it that way." I can understand the helpfulness of understanding a problem. So asking those questions CAN be valid. In my experience, I have found when someone responds as previously stated, it's in order to criticize or condemn the suggestion. I find this type of response very off-putting and it has curbed my participation in some conversations because it detracts from the conversation. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences they would care to share on this topic?

[buzzingrobot]

Human nature, I imagine. We converse online pretty much as we converse in real life... in a bar at 3 am. :)

But, moderation in all things, as someone said. As this place shows, good moderation keeps the noise down.

It is interesting, though, to see how many tech questions along the lines of "I want to do X. Explain to me how to do X, please." get answers like this: "No. Don't do X. X is bad. You are bad for wanting to do X." And then the discussion devolves into assertions for and against X, forgetting about the original question.

[montag dp]

I disagree, at least in some cases. Sometimes a poster is looking at a problem the wrong way, and solving it a different way is the best option. Maybe the way that the poster is approaching the problem is inefficient or could cause other issues. In other cases, the poster is trying to do something harmful, dangerous, and/or illegal and purposely withholds information. In that situation, his/her reason for what they are attempting to do should definitely be questioned.

It is possible to go overboard with such questioning and become rude or go far off track. In such cases, you can always ignore the posts if possible, or report if not. But other than that, there is no reason to be offended by the questions. After all, you should be able to explain why you are doing what you are doing, and the extra information is beneficial to the volunteers who are participating in the forum and trying to help.

[QIII]

Sometimes "Why would you want to do that?" will affect the approach to an answer.

Sometimes it is best to ask why someone would request support for the best way to jump from a cliff. Should the answer be given without regard to consequence?

[grahammechanical]

This is a public forum. Many more people read the threads than post into them. I see education as part of the responsibility of responders. Not just the education of the original poster but any who would be viewing the thread. To give an example.

In the past it was not possible to upgrade from 14.04 to 15.10 without first upgrading to 15.04 which is out of life. It was a difficult and risky upgrade path. But recently the developers made it possible to do a 14.04 to 15.10 upgrade and in fact invited people to do just that. And in some cases the result was a broken OS.

But why do this upgrade when 15.10 is halfway through its support life and then be forced to upgrade to 16.04 when 15.10 reaches end of life? Especially when some of those doing it are breaking their OS. I do not understand it and I see nothing wrong with warning someone off of doing it.

And then there are those who try dual booting Ubuntu with Windows 8/10 and are unsuccessful because they installed Ubuntu in BIOS/Legacy/CSM mode when Windows was installed in EFI mode. It keeps happening. And if explaining how the situation went wrong educates someone else to avoid the same mistake, then I see nothing wrong with that.

The best way to change how things are done is to show the way ourselves.

Regards

[user1397]

I think it differs from forum to forum, and you'll find a lot more of those kinds of replies you're talking about in forums like the Arch forums as compared to this one.

But you can still find those kinds of replies here. And yes, sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it is necessary to stop a user from doing something very wrong or pointless. But I'm of the idea that no matter what, you should try to be respectful and always give the person the benefit of the doubt. So there are ways to respond to a new user that are blunt yet polite. There's no point in being hostile or sarcastic, that will drive away new users.

[mastablasta]

questions along the line of "how to nail the wall onto the nail?" should get "why would you do that when you should be nailing the nail to the wall and not wall to the nail. much easier and saves a lot of hassle.

tech example:
I don't want to open ports on router firewall every time i start a service, how do i open all ports on on firewall at once?

[buzzingrobot]

I think it differs from forum to forum...

Folks here typically try to probe politely for more information about what a poster is actually trying to achieve. But, as you mention, there are other venues where you risk being told to go away if your question is out of sync with the biases of the regulars.

[ventrical]

This is a public forum. Many more people read the threads than post into them. I see education as part of the responsibility of responders. Not just the education of the original poster but any who would be viewing the thread. To give an example.

In the past it was not possible to upgrade from 14.04 to 15.10 without first upgrading to 15.04 which is out of life. It was a difficult and risky upgrade path. But recently the developers made it possible to do a 14.04 to 15.10 upgrade and in fact invited people to do just that. And in some cases the result was a broken OS.

But why do this upgrade when 15.10 is halfway through its support life and then be forced to upgrade to 16.04 when 15.10 reaches end of life? Especially when some of those doing it are breaking their OS. I do not understand it and I see nothing wrong with warning someone off of doing it.

And then there are those who try dual booting Ubuntu with Windows 8/10 and are unsuccessful because they installed Ubuntu in BIOS/Legacy/CSM mode when Windows was installed in EFI mode. It keeps happening. And if explaining how the situation went wrong educates someone else to avoid the same mistake, then I see nothing wrong with that.

The best way to change how things are done is to show the way ourselves.

Regards

Yes. One man's seemingly unhelpful commentary may be another persons diamond in the rough. :)

Regards..

[ventrical]

Folks here typically try to probe politely for more information about what a poster is actually trying to achieve. But, as you mention, there are other venues where you risk being told to go away if your question is out of sync with the biases of the regulars.


I don't think the moderators move messages or jail comments because of the 'biases of the regulars'. Usually someone has complained or has made a request to the admins. Keeping the peace is a rather big undertaking and these guys are doing it as volunteers and we should be appreciative of them.


Regards..

[yoshii]

I agree with chamrjr that it can be a problem.
I think it's because some people's mindset is about how they think about things rather than trying to understand the other person's perspective enough to help them.
It's not exactly selfish, because they are trying to be helpful, but it is still self-oriented and not very empathic.

And while some questions indicate a misinformed position, some responses also indicate a misinformed or at least overly-assuming position.

And then there are some folks who are just kind of thinking as they go along so the response kind of drifts.

Try not to get too annoyed, and you'll get the help you are looking for eventually.
And if some people seem to be annoying 100% of the time, there is the ignore list function available on this forum too.

[jeremy31]

If someone feels a post is not needed, click the "report post" under the post and the staff will decide what to do with it. Sometimes a friendly PM with helpful comments to assist may be a better alternative to help someone new to the site

I don't think I was immune to this in my early days and I don't want to look at my post history

[O)9(yo&#]

I have found that it helps if I give folks an idea of my level of competence. So I usually post in the Noobie Forum, so people will understand that I probably don't know the right way to do something, or that I'm doing something wrong. If you don't let people know where you're at in terms of competency, then they may assume you are more competent than you really are, and criticize you, rather than taking it for granted that you don't in fact know, and need some help. It give people something to go on, and facilitates communication.

[DuckHook]

I've helped out hundreds of people on the New to Ubuntu subforum for years. I have lost count of the number of bad stumbles that I've helped people avoid by asking what their ultimate end goal is and then giving them a proper solution to their problem rather than their erroneously preconceived idea of a solution. As only one example, newcomers, especially from Windows, try to sudo absolutely everything. Just blindly telling them how to do this without suggesting a better alternative is not "being helpful"; it is, in fact, quite the opposite: a dereliction of our duty as helpers. Real help does not mean yelling directions to someone as they amble off a cliff.

While some erstwhile helpful posters may jump to improper assumptions, this is at most an annoyance. But failing to anticipate a bad move is far more than an annoyance and can lead to disaster. Since this is a technical help forum dealing with many who are new to Ubuntu, it is practically a requirement to be on our toes and anticipate such bad moves. This situation is only exacerbated by the fact that we are four-fifths blind, deaf and hobbled by the limitations of the medium we are restricted to, and therefore must try reading minds from afar as best we can. If this means that I occasionally peeve someone off by making an unwarranted assumption, well... I can live with that.

An apology takes far less time than trying to walk them through a recovery of their priceless and now lost data.

[vasa1]

... I find this type of response very off-putting and it has curbed my participation in some conversations because it detracts from the conversation. ...
I don't see why that should be a reason to curb your participation. Providing a sane response is what you can and should do. Why bother about others?

[mikodo]

I wanted to start this thread as a way to help make the open source community more open. Therein lies the problem with this kind of medium. Take your comment I highlighted. You started that sentence and post by indicating you wanted to help the open source community be more open. Open code was my first guess, as we are in a computing environment that prides itself of being able to see how things are coded. Cool, I was guessing. Then you elaborated more ...
Has anyone ever asked a question on some forum or another about how to do something and instead of receiving answers or even "I don't knows", are responded to "why do you want to do that?" or "you shouldn't do it that way." I can understand the helpfulness of understanding a problem. So asking those questions CAN be valid. In my experience, I have found when someone responds as previously stated, it's in order to criticize or condemn the suggestion. I find this type of response very off-putting and it has curbed my participation in some conversations because it detracts from the conversation. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences they would care to share on this topic?
But, when I read on, I saw my assumption was wrong and you had something else in mind. By, continuing to state your intent of your post and why, I understood it was something different that you wanted to discuss. Cool again.

It is difficult to convey our messages, with the written word without a lot of words. It is a skill that is developed over time. I see people in Linux forums and in other places, like IRC and Mailing Lists who I am pretty sure have really cultivated their craft of communicating within it. I'm thinking a lot of them are professionals or have been such in some capacity, in someway with computers. Contrast their form of communication with mine and, you see two ends of the continuum. I go on and on, in a vague hope that I will make myself understood. I haven't learned the same level of communication skill yet, these experienced posters have learned in this environment.

So, often questions have to be asked of me to clarify what it really is what I want, so as to offer the best help the helper can provide for me.

Also, the helper my be someone like me, who has not perfected this form of communication and can be "off-putting", just by my way of communicating.

It think it boils down to how we perceive what some else is trying to convey. If, we could see the body-mannerisms of each other, I think 90% of our difficulties in communicating would disappear. We are much better at reading body language than the spoken word and I would hazard to guess, much less even still with the written word, in this fast communication environment, where people are not taking time to craft a well worded document.


my $.02 ...

:)

[mastablasta]

I don't see why that should be a reason to curb your participation. Providing a sane response is what you can and should do. Why bother about others?

++++++++++++++++ 10000000000

[buzzingrobot]

I don't think the moderators move messages or jail comments because of the 'biases of the regulars'

If someone responds to a question with something along the lines of, "Don't be stupid. You shouldn't even be using Ubuntu..." then I hope the mods quietly remove it.

As far as I know, that kind of thing happens rarely here. But, it's not uncommon elsewhere on fora that cater to folks who are biased to favor one distribution or one approach to Linux, etc. I've seen it often on sites that cater to distributions from which others are derived. Posters who admit they're using a derivative risk being told off and insulted.

That, though, is human behavior, online of offline.

[chamerjr]

You guys all make excellent points and I agree with the majority view here...which I think Mastablasta summed up best.......
questions along the line of "how to nail the wall onto the nail?" should get "why would you do that when you should be nailing the nail to the wall and not wall to the nail. much easier and saves a lot of hassle. tech example: I don't want to open ports on router firewall every time i start a service, how do i open all ports on on firewall at once? I don't think anyone would object to assistance in that regard. Most people would....or at least should....find that kind of commentary helpful. Buzzingrobot elaborates the type of commentary I was really referring to
Human nature, I imagine. We converse online pretty much as we converse in real life... in a bar at 3 am. :) But, moderation in all things, as someone said. As this place shows, good moderation keeps the noise down. It is interesting, though, to see how many tech questions along the lines of "I want to do X. Explain to me how to do X, please." get answers like this: "No. Don't do X. X is bad. You are bad for wanting to do X." And then the discussion devolves into assertions for and against X, forgetting about the original question. I have been in many threads on many forums that have devolved into "assertions for and against X, forgetting the original question." I ran into this on my second post on the thread. I didn't really engage it, nor do I plan to, because I know how that kind of conversation will devolve. But it's a big turn off for any one trying something new. Especially if it has a learning curve and relies on a community to educate one another. I'm glad everyone responding was so nice and polite. It makes me think there's hope. I personally think it's great we're talking about it. That way when we see it in the future, perhaps instead of engaging in it, we can curb it and bring more people into it. I'm introducing my oldest son to Linux, coding, and open source programs in general. I know when I was his age, I gave up on a lot of projects because I didn't want to put up with the BS. We never know whom we're influencing....whether positive or negative. It is my sincere hope that everyone tries to make every persons experience here, as well as other forums, a positive one.

[ventrical]

If someone responds to a question with something along the lines of, "Don't be stupid. You shouldn't even be using Ubuntu..." then I hope the mods quietly remove it.

As far as I know, that kind of thing happens rarely here. But, it's not uncommon elsewhere on fora that cater to folks who are biased to favor one distribution or one approach to Linux, etc. I've seen it often on sites that cater to distributions from which others are derived. Posters who admit they're using a derivative risk being told off and insulted.

That, though, is human behavior, online of offline.

This thread is a spin off of: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2325585&p=13494872#post13494872

User , TheFu, gave an objective opinion based on his experience. I don't see where it was unhelpful. The OP decided to start a new post here. I do not totally understand why but I felt the content offered by TheFu was very respectable. When I first joined the forums I had to develop a thick skin because I did not always hear the answers I wanted to hear. I probably annoyed a lot of people at first but the staff here have broad shoulders .. and I eventually settled down :)

regards..

[vasa1]

...
User , TheFu, gave an objective opinion based on his experience. I don't see where it was unhelpful. ... I felt the content offered by TheFu was very respectable. ...

+1 and thanks for setting the record straight. In the light of that, OP may reconsider the title of this thread. I, for one, didn't see any evidence of insistence or of a response that could, by any stretch, warrant the use of "unhelpful" or "summary" to describe it.

[mikodo]

This thread is a spin off of: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2325585&p=13494872#post13494872

User , TheFu, gave an objective opinion based on his experience. I don't see where it was unhelpful. The OP decided to start a new post here. I do not totally understand why but I felt the content offered by TheFu was very respectable. When I first joined the forums I had to develop a thick skin because I did not always hear the answers I wanted to hear. I probably annoyed a lot of people at first but the staff here have broad shoulders .. and I eventually settled down :)

regards..

I hadn't seen that that earlier thread so, your posting of it I find interesting.

Why indeed, do I also feel the content offered by TheFu is a very respectable response. Little of its' technical nature, I understand. Nevertheless, with the assumption that, TheFu has a "thick enough skin" to endure he being a subject of discussion that evaluates him like an object to study for learning, I think it is a good study for this thread.

I can only list some of the reasons why indeed I see it the same as you. Some are subjective, some are historical that I have witnessed, some are factual in the text (admittedly under my assumption here), some are due to the level of expertise that is shown, some is due to the nature of education offered.

No doubt there are many more reasons. Again, in this fast moving written communication I took only a short while to convey a message.

I still think it boils down to how we envision/perceive what someone is trying to convey in this medium. And, the style of communication used. There are two sides to any problem derived from this. The poster and the reader are responsible for both their parts in it. Best, we try to be charitable on "both sides of the coin", I guess.

Addendum. Well I'm a good example of not being an attentive reader. Ventricle wrote something and I misunderstood. I could have easily made a faux pas. Luckily though, I don't think I did.

next ...

[QDR06VV9]

Best, we try to be charitable on "both sides of the coin", I guess.

That is our goal here.

[buzzingrobot]

This thread is a spin off of: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2325585&p=13494872#post13494872


Thanks. I hadn't seen that.


User , TheFu, gave an objective opinion based on his experience. I don't see where it was unhelpful.

Agree. His response wasn't anything like the kind of deliberately abusive remarks I've seen elsewhere. Social media sites seem to include language in their T&C's giving them most rights to the content we post on them, including wiping accounts and their content altogether.

The OP's request specifies an application that, as far as I know, does not exist. But, it's interesting. Presumably, it would need the ability to authenticate to each of a user's social media accounts, use a URL or something else associated with a thumbnail to locate it's full-size image, and download that image for local display. Deletion of the full image after predetermined period of time seems do-able. The thumbnails need to be made in the first place, either before or after a full inage is uploaded. The app would rely on the various social media sites not relocating the images periodically.


A quick and dirty homemade mockup might be thumbnails embedded in an HTML file with links pointing to their full-size counterpart.


I'm not sure we could count on sites to avoid relocating files and, as Fu suggests, they may not be interested at in all in helping other tools link to their content.

[ventrical]

I hadn't seen that that earlier thread so, your posting of it I find interesting.

Addendum. Well I'm a good example of not being an attentive reader. Ventricle wrote something and I misunderstood. I could have easily made a faux pas. Luckily though, I don't think I did.

next ...

Sometimes surfing the internet can be like surfing the Bonzai Pipeline!!:) Really no time to think and one small slip and your head could be in the sand. :) Mea culpa!

During the late 60's, early 70's there were these speed reading gimmicks.. uh . umm .. books that you could buy to teach you how to read 10 times faster while learning and retaining. heheh .. limitless .. ya know :) .. and then there were spell checkers .. :)

regards..

[grahammechanical]

I think that a bit of so-called unhelpful commentary would have helped this user do what he wanted to do a lot sooner then actually happened.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2326405&p=13497797#post13497797

The user asked a definite question and got a definite answer but because the user failed to give full details of the situation the answer she or he got was not the answer he or she needed.

"Garbage in. Garbage out." Applies not just to the information in the database but also to the search criteria.

Regards.

[ventrical]

Well that's true ya know... The burden of responsibility to compose a legible and coherent question in the English language lies on the shoulders of the OP whether one is a member or a participant. In the case you referenced, the OP is a near 10 year veteran of the forum so all that are left are excuses. I mean .. questions do evolve and morph and I notice many end_users are very tolerant and allow for ample leeway to allow this to happen but in some cases it is not garbage in, garbage out ... it's just garbage. :) I mean if I ask something in slang cryptic: "How can I fix SLC.oRvax on my nmemonic scratch-kick. I was using SIL.ver 4.2a but switched to NOL.ver 2.1b. Thanks :) " and then get mad when nobody replies then I have to ask myself if my questions are formulated in a way that another individual feels comfortable and inspired to attempt to try an offer a solution or direction.

Edit:
In retrospect, it is usually the other contributors asking all the right followup questions with their unhelpful comments :) ahh I get it.

regards..

[chamerjr]

This thread is a spin off of: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2325585&p=13494872#post13494872 User , TheFu, gave an objective opinion based on his experience. I don't see where it was unhelpful. The OP decided to start a new post here. I do not totally understand why but I felt the content offered by TheFu was very respectable. When I first joined the forums I had to develop a thick skin because I did not always hear the answers I wanted to hear. I probably annoyed a lot of people at first but the staff here have broad shoulders .. and I eventually settled down :) regards.. First, while I was certainly inspired by TheFu's response, it wasn't my sole motivation for starting this thread. I have been a member of many online communities and the vast majority of technical ones, in my experience, are inundated with "unhelpful commentary". It's not that TheFu's response was wrong. It was the "just sayin" part at the end where he/she recommended I backup to an hdd. In summary they said "no you can't, do it this way", where the "way" they suggested is the most common way and was not needed as part of an answer. Besides the fact that a hard backup is kind of a "no duh", I specifically mentioned space being a concern and while I didn't say it directly, I felt that "ultrabook" implied portability. Maybe it was a lack of specification on my part or misinterpretation of the "tone" of his/her text. My statement indicated my inspiration for this thread. Please don't take this thread in anyway as a complaint of TheFu's response. It was the inspiration but far from my only experience/observation with "unhelpful commentary". As I mentioned before, buzzingrobot summed up my point nicely.....
It is interesting, though, to see how many tech questions along the lines of "I want to do X. Explain to me how to do X, please." get answers like this: "No. Don't do X. X is bad. You are bad for wanting to do X." And then the discussion devolves into assertions for and against X, forgetting about the original question. Go onto any opensource port for doom, quake, etc and merely ask if you can use a controller. You'll get trolled so hard, it's not even funny. People will debate why rather than answering your question or attempting to help you solve the problem. It's not limited to those threads either. I had a question I posted on retropie related to emulation station on PC and explained why I was asking on retropie forums rather than emulationstation forums. The very first person posted a link to the emulationstation forums. And the best part of that whole experience was, two or three posts later, someone posted a link on the retropie forum and explained what I needed to look for to fix my problem. There are other examples but I digress. I hope I've made my point and brought up an interesting discussion. If you have a question about a posters question, ask the question. Don't tell them they are wrong for asking a question. The only way to overcome ignorance is to ask questions. My problem isn't questioning a question....the first step in problem solving is understanding the problem, after all. My problem is questioning why you would ask a particular question and/or offer solutions that are contrary to what the user is asking.

[DuckHook]

Not trying to be argumentative, but I still can't figure out what you found objectionable about The Fu's post.

The Fu's response was, in fact, highly informative. To distill it down to its essence, he said:


Your requested app does not exist, because
Social media sites are ever-changing chameleons, designed that way precisely to defeat the sort of data mining that the you were requesting, and
They do this because their business model requires you to constantly revisit their site to be exposed to the advertisers who are their real customers, and BTW
You should treat the data on such sites as impermanent and transitory, since it is an established fact that such data "disappear from social sites all the time" (this is true―just Google "facebook/icloud/google+ lost my data"), so it is advisable to treat such sites as unreliable repositories and back your data up locally.

Now, quite aside from the fact that The Fu did, in fact, answer your question (in point 1), he then went to the further trouble of making the effort to explain why. Moreover, his suggestion regarding local backup is not only sound advice, but standard administrator operating practice. I've given the same advice countless times in these forums and it appears permanently in my signature. He did not advise you to take your data off the cloud or to use local storage in lieu of the cloud; he just advised you to back up. It is precisely The Fu's level of care, attention to detail and willingness to explain fully that I find so valuable about his contributions to the forums. I read his posts often because there's a good chance that I will learn something new from him.

I've already said my piece (post #14 above) about why we veterans often go above and beyond just what is asked. Most questioners seeking help on these forums not only don't mind, but are deeply appreciative of any extra guidance offered over and above the question asked. And if the proffered advice doesn't suit your needs, all that is necessary is a simple "thank you for your time" and then move on.

Requesting help on a community help site―comprised of volunteer experts―does not come with the hidden caveat that the answers you receive must be constrained only to those that validate your preconceptions. Such an expectation is unrealistic, unfair to those trying to help, and is bound to result in disappointment.

[wildmanne39]

And with that I believe this thread has run its course and his closed!