Questions without answers

[Ed Nather]

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 [...]
> 
> 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."
> 
> I find that often I have the answers to questions I read, but when I
> see the above request for private replies, I don't bother to reply to
> the question, private or public. 

I never reply either, for exactly the same reasons: if the questioner is
too damn busy to read the newsgroup and watch for replies, then I am
damn well too busy to bother with the question.

I can find no excuse for this behavior, so I don't excuse it.

If the article is a request for software, and I happen to have it handy,
then I will mail it off to them  -- but that's not the point here.  The
point of the net is information exchange, not private collection.

(Can you say self-righteous?  ... Guilty as charged.)


-- 
Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
{allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
nather at astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU