This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list so I am posting it here. This discussion sparked from this message.
We should clearly mention on the postgres mailing list page that people are encouraged to do their own research and that we are a community of people who help for free. And so we expect OP to do basic initial research. And the OP is not entitled to receive an answer as we are not bound by any contract. We spend our personal time away from our busy schedule to help others and we have the right to choose who we give our time to.
Another important point is we need a mechanism to prevent polluting our community. We need to raise the bar a little. Or we become like quora. Where the same question is posted thousands of times with the exact same wording. Stack Exchange has taken it to the extreme to the point that it's become toxic for newbies. We need to be somewhere in between. I propose when the first time someone posts such a question, we give them the benefit of doubt and point them to resources which they should consider before posting. Second time, we warn them not to do this again and use the resources they have at their disposal. The third time we should temporarily ban them (say for a week).
It's my personal opinion. But i personally do not want to deal with entitled people who cannot do basic google searches.
