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

[James Wilkinson]

Charles Howse wrote:
> But is it mandatory for me to list the research I've done and the results?
> I would hope not.
> Maybe I've gone off on a tangent in my research, or don't know how to Google
> as well as someone else?  Is that a reason to RTFM me?

"Mandatory" isn't a helpful word, I think. It isn't mandatory for you to
post or me to answer.

It's just that, out of courtesy to those who do try to help, it's nice
if you can specify what you've done so they don't waste everyone's time
suggesting it again.

But there are other factors as well. If you've gone off on a tangent,
then that means your mental model of what's going on isn't accurate. You
may find that the response says something like "don't worry about the
BIOS, Linux sets this up for itself". That might tell you more about how
hardware gets set up, and what has responsibility for what. It will give
you a much better mental model for troubleshooting in the future.

If you don't mention the BIOS, then you still might think that what the
BIOS says is necessarily accurate (for example).

If you can't Google, that is a problem. But the response might say "I
googled on '"foo bar" --widget', WITH the double quotes". That might
show you, by example, how to Google better.

And that *is* a life skill worth learning.

Hope this helps,

James.

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