Suggestion on Responses

P

Pete

I have been using these groups for assistance (and offering some at times)
for the last few months. I have a suggestion for all those that respond to
the various questions--At least have the courtesy to answer the original
question or provide some guidance to help the person find some help.

I have seen so many times that a question has been posted and the responders
are throwing ideas that do not answer the original post. While I am sure the
ideas are well-intended and could be helpful, in my opinion, they leave the
original question unanswered. I can only imaging how the originator of the
question feels.

With the volume of questions in some of these groups, wasting time to
respond to unrelated comments is a total frustration to those of us posting
questioins.

Thank you for your time and assistance.
 
A

Allen Browne

Pete, thanks for your answer reminding us to answer the question that was
asked. I know I am sometimes guilty of not reading the question well.

It is often difficult to understand why the poster is seeking an outcome,
such as the frequently asked "Why can't I have more than 255 fields in my
table?" The only sensible answer is to NOT store your data that way. So if
the question sounds like, "Which route do I take to drive from London to New
York?", we need to give you an answer that says, "Wrong approach."
 
P

Pete

Thanks for your response Allen. I understand a bit of where you are coming
from, but your response is the type of thing I am referring to.

To take your response fairly literally, I believe your response should be
something like: "Drive north thru Europe, over the North Pole, then south
thru Canada to get from London to New York. However, a better approach might
be to drive to the airport and get on an airplane." You answered the
question and also provided an alternative that may help.

My comment stems from the times I have seen a fairly straight-forward
question posed, yet the responses are saying things like "Why do it that
way?" or "It should be done this way" or going off on a portion of the post
that does not seem to have relevance/importance to the answer. I don't claim
to be an expert in Access or coding, but it seems to me that there usually is
more than one way to accomplish something and someone needs some help going
in the direction that they want and/or understand.
 
D

Douglas J Steele

Speaking for myself (and, hopefully, some of the other responders), often it
helps to know the "why", not just the "what". Just because the poster has a
particular approach in mind may not make it the best approach. And sometimes
the
question just doesn't make sense, because they're asking how to do something
that we'd never do.
 
R

Rick Brandt

Pete said:
Thanks for your response Allen. I understand a bit of where you are
coming from, but your response is the type of thing I am referring to.

To take your response fairly literally, I believe your response
should be something like: "Drive north thru Europe, over the North
Pole, then south thru Canada to get from London to New York.
However, a better approach might be to drive to the airport and get
on an airplane." You answered the question and also provided an
alternative that may help.

My comment stems from the times I have seen a fairly straight-forward
question posed, yet the responses are saying things like "Why do it
that way?" or "It should be done this way" or going off on a portion
of the post that does not seem to have relevance/importance to the
answer. I don't claim to be an expert in Access or coding, but it
seems to me that there usually is more than one way to accomplish
something and someone needs some help going in the direction that
they want and/or understand.
Click to expand...

The regular responders in this (and most other) groups not only know something
about the subject matter, but also have a certain devotion (even affection) for
the topic at hand and thus don't like to see people using methods that they see
as perversions on "doing it right".

Consider a group devoted to the Ford Mustang circa 1964 to 1974 and some poster
asks the question "I'm considering putting a small block chevy engine in my mint
condition 65 2 + 2. How would I go about doing that?" Would you be surprised
if the majority of the responses were along the lines of "Don't do it."? Even
though the responders know that this is his car to do with as he pleases they
can certainly justify the position that they have no desire to be participants
to the crime.

I believe the same emotional reasons are at play with your concern. If people
want to put a gun to their head even after being warned, that is their
perogative. They should not expect me to supply the bullets though.
 
F

Fred Boer

Dear Pete:

Well, with all respect, I beg to differ. :)

As someone who relies heavily on the expert advice provided in these
newsgroups, the last thing I want is to be told how to implement something
that doesn't make sense. It is *far* more helpful, IMHO, to be told "Wait,
you are going about this the wrong way...!"

Since I began working with Access a few years ago, I have made *many*
wrongheaded design choices (Lookup fields in tables, no naming conventions,
no error handling...). I suspect that if I had been provided with answers
that *only* told me "This is how you can do what you want...", without
indicating that what I wanted to do was wrong, I'd have floundered in the
sea of my mistakes.

Even if the answers would provide, as you suggest, the way to do it *and*
the way it should be done, I fear that I might (as I believe many people
would) simply implement the inefficient solution and ignore the good advice.
As a teacher who presents courses in computers, I see this all the time,
with students saying "Don't try to explain why I should do this, just show
me the keystroke (or worse, just do it for me!).

I am not a professional developer, nor am I an expert by any means in
Access. I believe that many, many posters are like me. I commend those who
take the time to provide help that goes beyond merely "giving them what they
want" and give me truly helpful answers! I'd be lost without them...

Cheers!
Fred Boer
 
D

Dirk Goldgar

Pete said:
My comment stems from the times I have seen a fairly straight-forward
question posed, yet the responses are saying things like "Why do it
that way?" or "It should be done this way" or going off on a portion
of the post that does not seem to have relevance/importance to the
answer. I don't claim to be an expert in Access or coding, but it
seems to me that there usually is more than one way to accomplish
something and someone needs some help going in the direction that
they want and/or understand.
Click to expand...

It seems to me there are two main reasons people post answers in these
newsgroups: they like to help people, and they like to solve puzzles.
Most of the time, both motives are satisified in answering a question.
Sometimes, the motives are in conflict -- someone presents a puzzle, but
solving that specific puzzle will do the person a disservice. In a case
like that, I strongly believe that the desire to actually help the
questioner should trump the personal gratification of solving that
puzzle.

Of course, there are often alternative ways of approaching a particular
problem, and in such cases I usually try to present several reasonable
approaches. But there are also unreasonable approaches, or approaches
that experience has shown to be problematic in various ways. If I can
see that the OP is going down one of those paths, I will try to dissuade
him, and explain the problems with his approach. If he insists, maybe I
can help him, maybe I can't; after all, I'm not likely to have anything
"in the can" for that approach.
 
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