On Mon, April 24, 2006 11:24 am, Paul Novitski wrote: > At 06:29 AM 4/24/2006, Philip Thompson wrote: >>I think you are too kind. I think my response would have been likes >>Jay's... RTFM. However, you went above and beyond. Isn't this >>listserv great!! =D > > > Thanks, Philip. There may or may not be such a thing as stupid > questions but there sure as hell are a lot of stupid answers. We all I also always try to assume the best possible scenario for the original poster -- well, I TRY anyway. For exmaple, the OP in this thread MIGHT be trying to parse HTML scraped off of somebody else's site, and s/he has no control whatsoever over the crap HTML in it. So even this GREAT answer could have been improved by something like: "If this is HTML code you are responsible for generating" Anyway, assuming that the person posting HAS done their best (whatever that might mean) and trying to help them seems a lot less stressful (to me as the answerer) than just posting RTFM all the time. Obviously, we all "lose it" at some point, but I long ago realized that assuming the bad posts were the best efforts of the people posting was a lot better for my own sanity than the other options. And, of course, there are certain individuals whose posts I just delete, due to a proven inability, from post after post, to make any attempt at all to do even the simplest search for their info. Though there was that one poster whose employer wouldn't let them surf to the outside world... I almost kinda felt sorry for them and their posts. Not sorry enough to do their job for them, mind you. :-) I also recall some of MY first posts to the PHP list, back when there was only one list. I can guarantee you that some of them got (and deserved!) RTFM answers! But the generosity of others in more directed RTFM answers with links, or with specific search terms, or even generalized guidelines got me through. 'Course, I daresay there are some readers right now wishing I'd been chased away way back when, but so it goes. :-) "Well you can't please everybody, so you've got to please yourself." YMMV IANAL -- Like Music? http://l-i-e.com/artists.htm -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
