I’m starting this community discussion so members can reflect the topic. Nobody knows the root cause of the problem. That’s why one asks for help in the first place. @tree sums it up well:
Nobody should be judged for any of these reasons. And community members should be empathetic towards newcomers. Yes, sometimes this will lead to frustration some experts here, because they were trying to solve the wrong problem. But that’s just life.
Asking questions and making hypothesis and adapting them based on new information is what will help us solve people’s issues. And I wanted to encourage everyone to do more of that (many here are already doing it!). What follows is discussion that was moved from its original thread.
Information is left out of a noob’s [edit - non-expert’s] question for a variety of reasons:
brevity and summary
tacit knowledge
ignorance
In my case, I had not even remembered about the VPN because I hadn’t realized it was relevant (i.e. tacit knowledge). Even if I had remembered, I probably wouldn’t have disclosed it at first out of respect to the audience - I wouldn’t want swamp readers with ‘extraneous’ details (i.e. brevity).
Groping “upstream” towards prerequisite info is actually a process of redefining the problem as understanding develops. It is essential, healthy and inevitable.
@enmus Please don’t dis me for not getting everything down in writing before I understand what’s going on. Its not fair on me or indeed anyone who is floundering with a problem they need help with.
First, I liked your solution. In addition to that I just pointed out for you as well as for other users reading this that it is essential to give as much as possible info in order to be helped, no matter how irrelevant you think it was. Prepare your self before posting.
You obviously didn’t realize this either. So, actually, after your remark from above I have to tell you now that it’s not fair from you. We spent our free time to help you, are you aware of it?
And, you are telling I wasn’t the one who was fair, not to tell that you didn’t bother at any point to at least apologize for misleading us while trying to help you.
After your last post, it’s not surprising to me.
Courtesy never hurts, and sometimes helps
Be courteous. Use “Please” and “Thanks for your attention” or “Thanks for your consideration”. Make it clear you appreciate the time people spend helping you for free.
To be honest, this isn’t as important as (and cannot substitute for) being grammatical, clear, precise and descriptive, avoiding proprietary formats etc.; hackers in general would rather get somewhat brusque but technically sharp bug reports than polite vagueness. (If this puzzles you, remember that we value a question by what it teaches us.)
However, if you’ve got your technical ducks in a row, politeness does increase your chances of getting a useful answer.
(We must note that the only serious objection we’ve received from veteran hackers to this HOWTO is with respect to our previous recommendation to use “Thanks in advance”. Some hackers feel this connotes an intention not to thank anybody afterwards. Our recommendation is to either say “Thanks in advance” first and thank respondents afterwards, or express courtesy in a different way, such as by saying “Thanks for your attention” or “Thanks for your consideration”.)
@enmus, I believe you are in the wrong here. I read the whole original thread and as I stated in first post we should not judge people here because they don’t describe all the symptions initially.
Novice users, especially, have mental models that don’t necessarily map to reality and can’t make cause-consequence connections so easily. So I would encourage you (and anyone who’s acted similar in the past) to reconsider your actions.
In the same vein as " No one owes you a reply." found within the Discussion guidelines section for support, most certainly No one owes you an apology.
@tree
It’s a shame that you’ve been “greeted” as such, I assure you “good faith” and “well-meaning” intentions are not present. There’s a defined model of user that’s accepted here and, if you don’t fit the mould the most simple things (agreeing to disagree) will likely become unnecessarily burdensome.
If you’re feeling discouraged right now, you aren’t alone. This forum can often be found to not be very welcoming to all parties. I’ve been messaged by several users, read quite a few posts and having my own miserable experience with difficulties sprung from rampant pseudo-elitism, favoritism & hypocrisy (not to mention the penchant to disseminate/support dis/misinformation or blind leading the blind). I’ve only been on a few days but, have read a fair amount of post/replies and, it’s clear to me that this “open forum” is regulated by a select clique who have difficulties practicing what they preach and leading by example. Overall, feels something of a decades long time warp.
I’ve not gotten any traction on it yet but, here are some other options for Qubes related discussions which may contain less vanity driven dogma.
This would have been a private message if you'd accept them
I understand perfectly.
You are highly intelligent and probably fairly young. As such you see fault with everyone except yourself. The lack of good faith you are complaining about is most impressively demonstrated by yourself. Maybe you haven’t been wrong enough times and publicly enough to acquire some humility.
Who you really are time will tell. Maybe my first impression is wrong. The majority of your posts are very helpful and I am glad you are here. It’s the constant complaining I could do without.
But then again, maybe you are right and I am just an old man who doesn’t understand you. We’ll see.
Could not resist , I’m just a confused child after all.
Seriously though, the age presumptions have gotten absurd. I found the CoC succoring rather amusing but this has become ridiculous. @Sven@cayce is clearly not a child.
Of course I’m probably confused, but I think you have more in common than not (shite prolly pissed you both off there).
It’s been on my moderation queue for a while, and I had been procrastinating on commenting on it and then another moderation issue arised. Even though I quoted your post, this is something that happens from time to time.
Now thinking back at it I should have made the quote anonymous so it would not attract harassment and to keep the discussion focused on the issue at hand. I apologize for that. I’ll keep that in mind in the future.
, I’m just a confused child after all.