in reply to Is this the right way to learn?

Usually, such a person is trying to get his problem solved by spoonfeeding. Such people ask questions whenever they get stuck, and from the answer, only pick the things that bring them closer to their goal. And if they hit another bump, they ask new questions.

There isn't much you can do about that. You can reply 100 times with the advice to read a manual. 100 people can reply with that advice. But as long as there are people who give them bite size solutions to their specific problems, they are rewarded. It's a very efficient strategy, straight from Darwins theory books. IMO, the best thing you can do is to ignore such posts. It won't stop them from asking (not unless everyone ignores their posts), but at least you aren't spending many resourse. Not much more than glancing at their posts (and if we had killfiles, you wouldn't have to spend time glancing at their posts either).

Abigail

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Re: Re: Is this the right way to learn?
by tilly (Archbishop) on Oct 15, 2003 at 16:30 UTC
    If the first response is someone pointing out that this post is part of a pattern of repetitive questions from the same person, most people will decide not to respond. If the questioner is too annoying, their posts start getting considered. So far that combination seems to have been enough.

    Any healthy community always has some feedback mechanisms to encourage people to stay within an accepted range of behaviour. That is necessary because being generous to everyone is ultimately destructive of the community.

    Eventually we will have some questioners who go ballistic. We will also have some answerers who do their best to answer questions despite their being considered. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

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