Thread: ok i am really really new!!!!!!!

>and if we were all friendly and kind and cheerful in here, who knows?
I'm all for it, if you can figure out how to tell someone that he's wrong and ignorant while remaining kind and cheerful. Most of what we do here is pointing out errors. It doesn't matter that we also teach how to avoid those errors; it's the public display of the error itself that embarrasses and insults people, regardless of how nice you are in doing it.

Not necessarily. I've been corrected nicely before, and have done the same. Being corrected or correcting someone else does not mean that you have to be rude and insulting towards that person.

Say, "That's wrong" and not "You're wrong".
Say, "That's idiotic" and not "You're an idiot".

For example, let's take a look at this thread's replies:

Originally Posted by Wraithan

Read that, do that, don't be a lazy leech.

The link was great, but why the remark about being a lazy leech? That's a rude an insulting remark .... it's against the rules here to post things that are designed to be insulting and rude. In that, I simply echo Hikaru's next post. Please see rule 8. Prelude, you being a Moderator, can I ask you why you have not edited Wraithan's post, in accordance with the rules?

Why do some here seem to think that to be technical you also have to be rude?

I think Hikaru's first reply in this thread was spot on: it gave relevant information and was not denigrating in anyway.

I know I raised this subject when I was new here. Some may remember. I'd imagine the flames I received at that time were a lot hotter than those you'd expect in Hell. It would appear that some of those people, unfortunately, have not grown up

And notice, that I have disagreed here very strongly with some points of view without insulting anyone!

>Say, "That's wrong" and not "You're wrong".
>Say, "That's idiotic" and not "You're an idiot".
This I agree with thoroughly. However, I've been misunderstood on countless occasions where the first option is construed as the second option. 1) We have quite a few people who aren't native English speakers and don't catch the nuances and 2) most native English speakers don't care enough to try to understand the nuances in the first place. That breeds confusion and misunderstanding with even the most well intentioned of comments.

>but why the remark about being a lazy leech?
I agree. It's certainly exceeding the bounds of good taste.

>Please see rule 8.
I don't think rule 8 applies in this case. The first three posts define the meat of this thread. The OP asked a question that deserved both a helpful answer and a rebuke about proper posting etiquette. Hikaru provided the answer and Wraithan provided the rebuke. Both answers were helpful, and I viewed Wraithan's comment as a sting to drive home the fact that the OP made a mistake. It was a little over the top, and he's been informed of that.

>Prelude, you being a Moderator, can I ask you why you have not edited
>Wraithan's post, in accordance with the rules?
I don't feel that any rules were broken, so an edit was not warranted. Rest assured, I'm already doing what I feel is necessary. Yes, I'm probably more tolerant than you would like, but I would be a terrible hypocrite otherwise.

>Why do some here seem to think that to be technical you also have to be rude?
Imagine a fresh young newbie who comes along. He sees all of the respected senior members of the forum being "rude" and misunderstands the point behind it or can't see the fine line between getting to the point and being cruel. In an attempt to become one of those respected few, he takes it upon himself to emulate their behavior. Voila!

>I think Hikaru's first reply in this thread was spot on: it gave relevant information and was not denigrating in anyway.
Yet it was incomplete. A complete answer would give relevant information without being denigrating and still informing the OP of the faux pas. If people don't see their mistakes, they repeat them, and that's worse than being denigrating because it defeats the purpose of this forum, which is to help people improve themselves.

I think one thing that a lot of folks might overlook in this is that some of us routinely read and post from work. When I'm at home I wanna spend time with my kids and not necessarily helping others fix their C problems.

When I'm at work, I'm in a different mode -- I might not always be all cheery kindness, and I'm taking time from my day to help someone else (which in a way is a kindness in and of itself).

At work things can be a bit cut-throat at times. If you're part of a team and you get a team member saying "Hey, I don't know anything about this, but I'm too lazy to search for it", they'd get told where to stick that attitude and pretty quickly. Sometimes that type of reaction might carry over in here.

Just an observation.

I don't feel my comment was over the top at all. He proclaimed to us his laziness and I felt that I should rephrase it. "i also dont want to search my .............. off so...." == "lazy leech". He did not feel our time was worth as much as his time. I don't care who you are, you come to a place like this and you should consider the people who you are asking as having the more valuable time. You don't go into class and say to the teacher "Please give me the answers to the quiz. I didn't want to read my book... so..."

The original question was answered a long time ago. If anyone wants to discuss the niceties of niceness, I suggest starting a thread on GD where such stuff belongs; let's leave the C Programming board for the C programming language.

Closed.