Gregory's Server(I've gotten really into posting "please don't reply if X Y Z" disclaimers on mastodon for my questions because otherwise I always get a lot of irrelevant replies like "I don't know but here's some speculation" or ”I started using the command line on my apple II” and it's just not helpful. Seems to be working so far!)
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17 comments
 @b0rk I've had so little luck with "please, I am B E G G I N G you not to just google this for me" warnings.  @davidr yeah people are so annoying on here sometimes. trying to push back on the reply guy culture a bit to make it livable for me and I think I'm slowly making some progress but it's hard @b0rk@social.jvns.ca It was kinda cool/weird to me to realize that I got comfy with CLI tools more than 5 years ago! @b0rk I have appreciated the restrictions being stated and have not replied where I almost fit the question because of them. I especially like it when it is stated as “I’m looking for x to better understand the experience from the point of view from y” so I can understand the reason behind the restrictions. @KennySpade that makes sense! maybe i'll try that. here the reason is that I want tips that are likely to help people learning *today* and what helped someone 20 years ago is less likely to be useful today (for example someone told me that what helped them 20 years ago was installing Gentoo, which is great, but I think Gentoo is kind of out of style now and I would not recommend it to someone learning in 2023) all of that is a lot of words though @b0rk for me, just the first bit about what helps people today would be enough. The way my brain works, if I’m told not to do something, I always have to try to figure out why, so a simple reason that makes sense is enough. If a reason isn’t provided, I might subconsciously make one up, and it might not be a good reason or anything close to the actual reason. I was the kid who would never accept “because I said so” as good enough. 😅 @b0rk thanks for the brief moment of introspection in which I am stunned to realize that I have indeed been using the command line for almost exactly 15 years. Dang! How did that happen??? @b0rk I appreciate it as someone who has submitted such replies before (sorry) and welcomes the clear, explicit delineation that these replies aren't helpful. Saves me time and you frustration. Everyone wins. @boredzo no worries! it's hard to blame people for replying in a way I didn't want when I didn't explain what I wanted :) @b0rk Thank you for doing that! I should know enough to not reply with "can't remember" or the like, but I'm grateful for the reminder anyway!  @b0rk Just speculating, but have you ever tried a second post that says something like "and if you have used a command line for decades and have an interesting story, tell it here"? I imagine that there are a lot of people who really want to participate. If there's a place where they're allowed to do that, maybe they'll be less likely to talk in the space you set aside for other people. @b0rk those disclaimers have deterred me from posting otherwise irreverent comments and encouraged me to think more broadly about when to reply in general, so thank you, it’s definitely worth doing 👍 |
@b0rk so, people actually read the full message. I would not have bet on it