RE: Help yourself get the answers

["Ben Nagy" <ben () iagu net>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: firewall-wizards-admin () honor icsalabs com 
> [mailto:firewall-wizards-admin () honor icsalabs com] On Behalf 
> Of Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr
> Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 7:06 PM
> To: firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com
>
>
> I'm posting a minor rant here, because of a series of poorly 
> thought out emails that our esteemed moderator has let through to the
list.

If we blocked the poorly thought out posts we'd have nothing to do but
listen to mjr and the guys with big brains discuss interesting points of
theory and speculation all day! ;)

> If you want to get your question answered:
[...] 
> (2) Do your research.

Ooh, I just have to jump in here. As someone who's tended to be a
question-answerer, I'd like to share my secret with the question-posers. 

Google. 

 I have lost count of the number of times I have seen some abtruse question
which piqued my interest, typed it verbatim into google and found the answer
within the first 20 hits. If it's not in Google, then try in Google Groups.
If it's not there, _then_ start searching mailing list archives and
appropriate forums.
 
Jeez, I'm not some super expert who knows the text of every RFC, the syntax
of a dozen firewalls and the flaws in every cryptosystem by heart - far from
it (although I'm not saying I'm a lucky amateur - I dropped the 'H' in IMO
years ago ;).

Sometimes I do a whole ten minutes worth of research to solve the problems
of some person I don't know from a bar of soap. It disappoints me when
posters clearly spend even less than that when it's their own network and
their own job.

I'm not saying that I expect everyone to be an expert and that nobody should
post questions which 'we' think are easy, just agreeing that it wouldn't
kill people to spend five minutes searching for the answer before they post.

ben


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