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No Divine Right to a Reply (Was: Advice: inline node editing, or not?)
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In a message dated 23/07/2003 20:23:36 GMT Daylight Time, jv@access-music.de writes:
[Lots of gratuitously rude diatribe snipped before and after.]
there are plenty of
newbies who have asked for help from so-called 'experts' and
'old-timers' in the XML field, only to be ignored
There is a serious point here. Some/many basic technical points do go unanswered on XML-Dev.
But, the practical reality is that there is no divine right to a reply.
Many/most/all of the active participants on XML-Dev have multiple pressures on their time. I guess I read/skim 5% of the email I receive (after spam is removed). So, as a matter of practicality, I read only topics that interest me or otherwise take my eye.
A proportion of questions, if answered more than superficially, would require many minutes to adequately draft a reply. Minutes that I (and presumably others) typically don't have spare. In reality, of course, the answers to many questions exist in books, online articles etc. Shouldn't the questioner take time to search for those?
When XML was at its pioneering stage taking time to answer basic questions made sense. [Check the archives of SVG-Developers for my most active list providing past answers.] After all, there were few worthwhile dead-tree or online information resources. That certainly has changed for XML technologies.
Another (related?) issue is that some questions fairly overtly seek (unpaid) consultancy.
It isn't straightforward to identify a way to solve such problems ... they aren't confined to XML lists.
A group of us is just about to launch AnswerSquad.com to see if we can find a viable way to create a non-XML-specific technical answers list. (See www.answersquad.com for a not-quite-final Web site describing what is proposed.). It's one attempt to find a solution to the time dilemma. Those who choose to subscribe will have claim on the squad's time and a right to expect an answer.
Without some mechanism like AnswerSquad it seems to me that many questions will inevitably go unanswered. ... Unless, of course, somebody can come up with a 25+ hour day!
Andrew Watt
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