It's interesting to compare that guide "How to report bugs effectively with ESR's "How to ask questions the smart way" [1]. They both cover similar material, but the styles are extremely different. The latter is rather hostile to the reader: "If ... then you are one of the idiots we are talking about." "If you decide to come to us for help, you don't want to be one of the losers." It's also heavy on "us vs them", how we are experts and you need to treat us properly.
You know, it just occurred to me that the "How to ask questions" document is targeted as much at hackers and how they should maintain their "standards" than at users who are asking questions. For example, the document has approving examples of "logically impeccable but dismissive" hacker answers; these make more sense as instructions on how a hacker should respond than as something relevant to a user.
I guess my point is that I had read the "How to ask questions" document for decades and viewed it as an objective document, not realizing how arrogant and "gatekeeping" it is.
I agree, that "how to ask questions the smart way" article always left a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps there should be a "how to answer questions" companion piece.
esr seems to have a pretty big ego, just based on his writings. (e.g. at one point he declared that he can tell if someone is smart or not just by looking at them)
The https://WhatHaveYouTried.com guy backtracked after a few years in the linked follow-up article, ashamed of giving the geek world another way to gatekeep and tell unworthy people to get lost.
Gemmell made a mistake in assuming the shame and guilt of the people who abused his article. The article is just a tool. We should hold the abusers responsible for their gatekeeping and telling others to get lost.
It's probably fine, if you put it in a separate section, clearing indicating that you are guessing.
At work we have an optional "diagnostic" section in our ticket template, mainly intended for the team, but I'd be happy to see a user try to fill it. At worse it's harmless, at best it gives the actual reason, somewhere in the middle it can give ideas even if it is wrong.
I wish. It happens very often that such speculation derails the whole investigation. It really shouldn’t, but people are people. If the title of the bug report says that the foobar is broken it might take weeks until someone realises that they were wrong and actually the problem is in the frobnicator which feeds the foobar.
Especially when because of this we assing the investigation to the wrong team. The foobar people don’t want to appear as if they don’t take the bug seriously, but all they check everything looks normal on their side.
It's interesting to compare that guide "How to report bugs effectively with ESR's "How to ask questions the smart way" [1]. They both cover similar material, but the styles are extremely different. The latter is rather hostile to the reader: "If ... then you are one of the idiots we are talking about." "If you decide to come to us for help, you don't want to be one of the losers." It's also heavy on "us vs them", how we are experts and you need to treat us properly.
You know, it just occurred to me that the "How to ask questions" document is targeted as much at hackers and how they should maintain their "standards" than at users who are asking questions. For example, the document has approving examples of "logically impeccable but dismissive" hacker answers; these make more sense as instructions on how a hacker should respond than as something relevant to a user.
I guess my point is that I had read the "How to ask questions" document for decades and viewed it as an objective document, not realizing how arrogant and "gatekeeping" it is.
[1] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
I agree, that "how to ask questions the smart way" article always left a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps there should be a "how to answer questions" companion piece.
esr seems to have a pretty big ego, just based on his writings. (e.g. at one point he declared that he can tell if someone is smart or not just by looking at them)
4 replies →
The https://WhatHaveYouTried.com guy backtracked after a few years in the linked follow-up article, ashamed of giving the geek world another way to gatekeep and tell unworthy people to get lost.
Gemmell made a mistake in assuming the shame and guilt of the people who abused his article. The article is just a tool. We should hold the abusers responsible for their gatekeeping and telling others to get lost.
Thank you! I’m definitely guilty of mongoose-ing and diagnosing in my bug reports so this is very helpful!
> diagnosing in my bug reports
It's probably fine, if you put it in a separate section, clearing indicating that you are guessing.
At work we have an optional "diagnostic" section in our ticket template, mainly intended for the team, but I'd be happy to see a user try to fill it. At worse it's harmless, at best it gives the actual reason, somewhere in the middle it can give ideas even if it is wrong.
> At worse it's harmless
I wish. It happens very often that such speculation derails the whole investigation. It really shouldn’t, but people are people. If the title of the bug report says that the foobar is broken it might take weeks until someone realises that they were wrong and actually the problem is in the frobnicator which feeds the foobar.
Especially when because of this we assing the investigation to the wrong team. The foobar people don’t want to appear as if they don’t take the bug seriously, but all they check everything looks normal on their side.