Hi John,

You are being *way* too PC here... The fact is that often, there is a decently worded question, but a response that is less than optimial and/or not completely thought out is posted. Trust me when I tell you, I am not the only one who feels this way. I just happen to be one the one to say so in public. I don't think you would have to go too far in the past to see me calling somebody on the carpet.

I really felt compelled to post this in light of Erik's post. Heck, if we are going to ask folks to subscribe to a protocol of sorts when posting questions, we should expect the same of those that attempt to provide answers, to be both accurate and reasonably complete. I am not saying you need to take the person by the hand and lead them through every step of the way. Then again, some folks need to take a little extra effort.

It probably would'nt bother me so much if were not for the fact that some of the biggest offenders are "blue-envelope" types.

I have overlooked some very important points at times when responding to a question. I appreciate the fact when somebody takes the time to point out the issue to me, and to further clarify the issue for the person making the original post. It show somebody gives a crap.

Yes, we are volunteers here. However, we have a responsibility to be accurate and reasonably complete. I don't think enough folks appreciate that fact. Rather, I think there are times when some folks become fixated on message counts, and whip off 1-2 sentence responses in which common sense would dictate that it is clearly no sufficient.

Ultimately, if you cannot relate to the question at all, you should stay silent. If you have a bit of an idea, but are not sure, you should ask the poster to clarify. If after that, you don't really know, you should tell the poster you don't know, and ask somebody to jump in instead of letting the thread die.

Just keeping it real, and telling it like it is........



>Hiya JVP,
>
>>When answering a question, or posting a response, please take the time to asertain of you have a freaking clue as both what the answer is, or at the very least, what the subject matter is about.
>
>Sometimes you have no idea....and the question lies fallow, unanswered, and what you are trying to do is get the original poster to clarify.
>
>>Too often, there are not only half-baked questions, but worse, there are half-baked answers. It is sometimes a tough skill to learn how to phrase a question properly. However, there is no excuse for posting half-baked and incomplete answers. In other words, I put the illness on the answerer to elicit more from the the person asking the question. And, if you do ask more info, please be sure to follow up and try to answer the question, or let the person know you don't know the answer and publicly ask somebody else to jump in.
>
>I would wholeheartedly disagree. Nobody is answering questions following a script. Time and time again, I have seen partial answers lead to a group gestalt where the original poster sees the light or someone else takes the lead offered by the incomplete response and fills in the gaps.