Gripe about Q w/o A (Was: Questions without answers)

[Rafael Mayer]

In article <50 at uisc1.UUCP>, root at uisc1.UUCP (Super user) writes:
> I would like to air one gripe that has been steadily building as I have
> been reading various posts on the question/advice oriented newsgroups.
>
> The trend is to ask a question, and then to finish it by saying "Please
> reply to E-mail/private mail as I am too busy to keep up with this
> conference/newsgroup."


> What's the result? Well, the result is a newsgroup in which you have lots
> and lots of questions, and no answers. The result is also that people
> stop reading the newsgroup, as nobody is really terribly interested in
> the questions. It's the answers and the advice people are reading it for.
>
> Comments and Feedback encouraged, publicly to this newsgroup.

Actually there is a good reason for this.  Person X posts a question on
newsgroup Y and 30 people know the answer.  If they all posted the answers to
the net then we would get high volume and redundancy in newsgroup Y.

I agree that questions without answers are annoying, the alternative practice
I have seen takes care of this problem.  If you post a question to the net add
the following:

	Respond by E-mail, and I will summarize to the net.

This way, we avoid seeing repeat postings of the same answer, and if there
is more than one solution, they are all neatly summarized in a single article.
It works.

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