A question of etiquette
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Believe it or not, from what I experienced it hurted more my corresponders when I told him/her to post their questions in a forum (so answers could benefit more people), than no responding at all. Nish you also forgot to mention that most people don't even thank you for the answers. I feel people are a bit shameless. Not only they want free support and expect us solve efficiently, fastly, and accurately THEIR problems (for which they are paid for), they also don't even take the chance to ask it nicely, in a dedicated forum instead of an article comment having not much to do with it. What has been hurting me more lately is people not even taking the time to ask a question accurately. While at the same time, they still expect a "copy/paste" answer. Anyway, that's it.
She's so dirty, she threw a boomerang and it wouldn't even come back.
__Stephane Rodriguez__ wrote: I feel people are a bit shameless. Not only they want free support and expect us solve efficiently, fastly, and accurately THEIR problems (for which they are paid for), I feel the same way. I want to help, but I also feel most people are just takers. What's worse, some simply don't want to try and figure it out for themselves, just let it be answered by someone else. That's the wrong attitude IMO. :( Jeremy Falcon Imputek "Oh no there was a knife in that kitchen drawer and I cut myself - please remove the kitchen." - David Wulff
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That does raise a point - are there email clients that can be set to accept emails up to a certain size (including attachment) ? I looked at the options on Outlook Express 6 and there doesn't seem to be an option for that. Elaine (fluffy tigress emoticon) Would you like to meet my teddy bear ?
Use Tools/Message rules/Mail. There's a rule which allows you to specify limit on size and there's one for attachments as well. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com
*** Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere. ***
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Hello all, I receive lots of direct emails every day from people asking for help, commenting on my articles, asking questions about something on my article etc. and I believe that I am not alone here. Initially I used to respond to some of them depending on how free I am, and to the others I used to reply politely asking them to post in one of the forums. But nowadays I find that the number of mails is increasing and as a rule I simply delete direct mails from people I do not know well. Is this proper etiquette? I mean I know that they themselves are being impolite by directly mailing me without posting in the forums, but am I correct in my attitude? If so I am thinking of creating a template email that explains why people should post in the forums and why they shouldn’t mail people directly. What are your thoughts on this? Regards, Nish p.s. I feel particularly aggravated when people send me zipped projects and with my slow bandwidth this is a really horrible thing to experience.
Author of the romantic comedy Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
Nishant S wrote: p.s. I feel particularly aggravated when people send me zipped projects and with my slow bandwidth this is a really horrible thing to experience. Who's your ISP and do they give you shell access with your account? You could write a program/script to intercept attached zip files in your inbox and automatically delete them from the server ya know. :) Jeremy Falcon Imputek "Oh no there was a knife in that kitchen drawer and I cut myself - please remove the kitchen." - David Wulff
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I get this all the time, too, although my CP visibility has dropped off the scale in recent times. My opinion - everyone deserves a reply, they took the time to ask your help because you've put yourself in the public eye. The more they ask of me, the more I expect them to be polite and to ASK, not just tell me what they want, but if I decide no, I will write back and say so. Having said that, I have an email in my inbox that has been there two days because I intend on mocking up a project to answer the question, but have not found time. But as a matter of policy, I always try to reply, and try to help where-ever I think people have asked in a way that shows they realise they are asking a decent sort of favour of me. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
Christian Graus wrote: but if I decide no, I will write back and say so. Same here, but then again, I don't get many emails like that. Jeremy Falcon Imputek "Oh no there was a knife in that kitchen drawer and I cut myself - please remove the kitchen." - David Wulff
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Hello all, I receive lots of direct emails every day from people asking for help, commenting on my articles, asking questions about something on my article etc. and I believe that I am not alone here. Initially I used to respond to some of them depending on how free I am, and to the others I used to reply politely asking them to post in one of the forums. But nowadays I find that the number of mails is increasing and as a rule I simply delete direct mails from people I do not know well. Is this proper etiquette? I mean I know that they themselves are being impolite by directly mailing me without posting in the forums, but am I correct in my attitude? If so I am thinking of creating a template email that explains why people should post in the forums and why they shouldn’t mail people directly. What are your thoughts on this? Regards, Nish p.s. I feel particularly aggravated when people send me zipped projects and with my slow bandwidth this is a really horrible thing to experience.
Author of the romantic comedy Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
delete the emails. don't encourage the senders. if you answer their first question, they usually think you're going to be their personal tutor indefinitely. or...send them an invoice for your time. charge $60/hr, or so. -c
Green's Law of Debate: Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
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Believe it or not, from what I experienced it hurted more my corresponders when I told him/her to post their questions in a forum (so answers could benefit more people), than no responding at all. Nish you also forgot to mention that most people don't even thank you for the answers. I feel people are a bit shameless. Not only they want free support and expect us solve efficiently, fastly, and accurately THEIR problems (for which they are paid for), they also don't even take the chance to ask it nicely, in a dedicated forum instead of an article comment having not much to do with it. What has been hurting me more lately is people not even taking the time to ask a question accurately. While at the same time, they still expect a "copy/paste" answer. Anyway, that's it.
She's so dirty, she threw a boomerang and it wouldn't even come back.
__Stephane Rodriguez__ wrote: Nish you also forgot to mention that most people don't even thank you for the answers. I actually find that the majority of people DO thank me for the time I take to answer them. __Stephane Rodriguez__ wrote: I feel people are a bit shameless. Not only they want free support and expect us solve efficiently, fastly, and accurately THEIR problems (for which they are paid for), they also don't even take the chance to ask it nicely, in a dedicated forum instead of an article comment having not much to do with it. The key word is *nicely*. If people DO ask nicely, I think they deserve an answer. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
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delete the emails. don't encourage the senders. if you answer their first question, they usually think you're going to be their personal tutor indefinitely. or...send them an invoice for your time. charge $60/hr, or so. -c
Green's Law of Debate: Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
You don't think that posting articles places you in the public eye and sets you up for this sort of contact ? In my experience, only one person who I have helped proceeded to send me zip after zip, and I told that person they needed to learn to stand on their own feet, and that I had no time to be their personal tutor. But most people just thank me and move on. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
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You don't think that posting articles places you in the public eye and sets you up for this sort of contact ? In my experience, only one person who I have helped proceeded to send me zip after zip, and I told that person they needed to learn to stand on their own feet, and that I had no time to be their personal tutor. But most people just thank me and move on. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
Christian Graus wrote: You don't think that posting articles places you in the public eye and sets you up for this sort of contact ? sets me up, sure, but that doesn't mean i have to like it. i give a lot, and i don't mind. but i prefer to do it on my own terms. -c
Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. -- George Bernard Shaw
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Use Tools/Message rules/Mail. There's a rule which allows you to specify limit on size and there's one for attachments as well. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com
*** Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere. ***
The only problem is that OE will first download the message (even big ones) and then apply the rules. It would be handier if the rules were applied *before* you spent the time downloading the message.
CPUA 0x5041 Sonork 100.11743 Chicken Little "So it can now be written in stone as a testament to humanities achievments "PJ did Pi at CP"." Colin Davies Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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__Stephane Rodriguez__ wrote: Nish you also forgot to mention that most people don't even thank you for the answers. I actually find that the majority of people DO thank me for the time I take to answer them. __Stephane Rodriguez__ wrote: I feel people are a bit shameless. Not only they want free support and expect us solve efficiently, fastly, and accurately THEIR problems (for which they are paid for), they also don't even take the chance to ask it nicely, in a dedicated forum instead of an article comment having not much to do with it. The key word is *nicely*. If people DO ask nicely, I think they deserve an answer. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
I haven't encountered much the things you depict, sadly. People don't really care about you, and the way they ask the question(s). People just live with their own little problems, and that's actually what they share. From what I see in what lotsa CP people answer here is that askers don't give a shit about learning to do something. They just care about be able to "copy/paste" so they go on with next problem. Not really sharing among a community, just free answers actually. (same stuff seen for MS or \MS NGs, personal website, ...)
She's so dirty, she threw a boomerang and it wouldn't even come back.
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I haven't encountered much the things you depict, sadly. People don't really care about you, and the way they ask the question(s). People just live with their own little problems, and that's actually what they share. From what I see in what lotsa CP people answer here is that askers don't give a shit about learning to do something. They just care about be able to "copy/paste" so they go on with next problem. Not really sharing among a community, just free answers actually. (same stuff seen for MS or \MS NGs, personal website, ...)
She's so dirty, she threw a boomerang and it wouldn't even come back.
I agree - there are people who after a year still only post to CP when they have a question, usually something MSDN can easily answer. I just prefer to work out who those people are, and start my relationship with each individual by assuming they are a nice person who would appreciate my help. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
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I agree - there are people who after a year still only post to CP when they have a question, usually something MSDN can easily answer. I just prefer to work out who those people are, and start my relationship with each individual by assuming they are a nice person who would appreciate my help. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
That said, CP is really an unsearchable KB. It's almost impossible to find something accurately whether with the general Search engine, or the more form-specific Search : too many results, not enough accurate. This of course assumes that people search the site before they post, which they actually don't. If you started asking them whether or not they searched the site, or MSDN, you would either have no answer at all, or even a flame. That's easy to become unenthousiastic about sharing knowledge...
She's so dirty, she threw a boomerang and it wouldn't even come back.
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That said, CP is really an unsearchable KB. It's almost impossible to find something accurately whether with the general Search engine, or the more form-specific Search : too many results, not enough accurate. This of course assumes that people search the site before they post, which they actually don't. If you started asking them whether or not they searched the site, or MSDN, you would either have no answer at all, or even a flame. That's easy to become unenthousiastic about sharing knowledge...
She's so dirty, she threw a boomerang and it wouldn't even come back.
__Stephane Rodriguez__ wrote: That said, CP is really an unsearchable KB. You're right - there is a great deal of room for improvement in the search facilities on CP. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
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__Stephane Rodriguez__ wrote: That said, CP is really an unsearchable KB. You're right - there is a great deal of room for improvement in the search facilities on CP. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
That's why I hinted CM to googlify (can you pronounce that?) the search engine (as on dotnet247.com).
She's so dirty, she threw a boomerang and it wouldn't even come back.
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The only problem is that OE will first download the message (even big ones) and then apply the rules. It would be handier if the rules were applied *before* you spent the time downloading the message.
CPUA 0x5041 Sonork 100.11743 Chicken Little "So it can now be written in stone as a testament to humanities achievments "PJ did Pi at CP"." Colin Davies Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
Are you sure? The OE version I'm using (6.0) has the following actions available for message rules: - do not download it from the server - delete it from the server I admit I've never used them, but they look promising. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com
*** Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere. ***
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Are you sure? The OE version I'm using (6.0) has the following actions available for message rules: - do not download it from the server - delete it from the server I admit I've never used them, but they look promising. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com
*** Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere. ***
Tomasz Sowinski wrote: Are you sure? No, I'm never sure. I get proven wrong too often to be sure about anything X| I will admit that I don't use message rules either, but if you look at the rule description (The third edit box in the message rules dialog) it has a default rule "Apply this rule after the message arrives". I took this to mean after the message has arrived on my computer. Ok, I will shut up now:|
CPUA 0x5041 Sonork 100.11743 Chicken Little "So it can now be written in stone as a testament to humanities achievments "PJ did Pi at CP"." Colin Davies Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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Hello all, I receive lots of direct emails every day from people asking for help, commenting on my articles, asking questions about something on my article etc. and I believe that I am not alone here. Initially I used to respond to some of them depending on how free I am, and to the others I used to reply politely asking them to post in one of the forums. But nowadays I find that the number of mails is increasing and as a rule I simply delete direct mails from people I do not know well. Is this proper etiquette? I mean I know that they themselves are being impolite by directly mailing me without posting in the forums, but am I correct in my attitude? If so I am thinking of creating a template email that explains why people should post in the forums and why they shouldn’t mail people directly. What are your thoughts on this? Regards, Nish p.s. I feel particularly aggravated when people send me zipped projects and with my slow bandwidth this is a really horrible thing to experience.
Author of the romantic comedy Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
I reply every email I receive about my articals but my mail-per-day rate is probably much smaller than yours. I think if you politly ask them to post in the appropriate forum is ok, but don´t let any email unresponsive. Mauricio Ritter - Brazil Sonorking now: 100.13560 MRitter :jig: I've gone sending to outer space, to find another race :jig:
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Hello all, I receive lots of direct emails every day from people asking for help, commenting on my articles, asking questions about something on my article etc. and I believe that I am not alone here. Initially I used to respond to some of them depending on how free I am, and to the others I used to reply politely asking them to post in one of the forums. But nowadays I find that the number of mails is increasing and as a rule I simply delete direct mails from people I do not know well. Is this proper etiquette? I mean I know that they themselves are being impolite by directly mailing me without posting in the forums, but am I correct in my attitude? If so I am thinking of creating a template email that explains why people should post in the forums and why they shouldn’t mail people directly. What are your thoughts on this? Regards, Nish p.s. I feel particularly aggravated when people send me zipped projects and with my slow bandwidth this is a really horrible thing to experience.
Author of the romantic comedy Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
Delete them. Then delete this. They should use the forums. After all, they may get a quicker response if they are on the other side of the world. There is a trick to this though, don't post so many articles!!!!! When was the last time you had a holiday - like a real one. Get away from computers for 2 weeks - do not touch one - a real holiday. We are lucky in that if we were not getting paid for this, it would also be out hobby - programming that is.
