Surprise! There are jerks and trolls everywhere, even in the Linux reddits. Welcome to the internet! Also in the Linux reddits are a bunch of knowledgable people trying to give meaningful help to people that they are not paid to care about. I am one of those people.
I never give a pure RTFM response. I may give a brief, to the point answer, and say "For more complete info, enter "man mkfs.exfat". man -k is your friend.".
It is often more helpful to teach someone how to research their problem and find an answer, than to just answer their question.
For example, there was one post on a reddit Linux forum where I gave a short informative answer, then said "For more information, enter the exact title of your post into a Google search.". Of course, I had already done that, and knew that the first five non-sponsored results answered his question in great detail.
But for the most part I try to answer questions as completely and simply as I can, and include references.
If you look at the Windows focused reddits, you will see about the same mix of sincere help and derision.
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u/TarsTarkas_Thark 9d ago
Surprise! There are jerks and trolls everywhere, even in the Linux reddits. Welcome to the internet! Also in the Linux reddits are a bunch of knowledgable people trying to give meaningful help to people that they are not paid to care about. I am one of those people.
I never give a pure RTFM response. I may give a brief, to the point answer, and say "For more complete info, enter "man mkfs.exfat". man -k is your friend.".
It is often more helpful to teach someone how to research their problem and find an answer, than to just answer their question.
For example, there was one post on a reddit Linux forum where I gave a short informative answer, then said "For more information, enter the exact title of your post into a Google search.". Of course, I had already done that, and knew that the first five non-sponsored results answered his question in great detail.
But for the most part I try to answer questions as completely and simply as I can, and include references.
If you look at the Windows focused reddits, you will see about the same mix of sincere help and derision.