Re:I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not dec...
by initram on Monday September 26, 2016 @01:56PM
(#12584026)
>When a person says, "I'm having a problem" and the response is, "Well I'm not having any problem, buh-bye!" it in effect says "I don't care that you have a problem."
What a bizarre interpretation. When someone says, "It works for me," they're saying "I tried your example because I want to help, but was unable to reproduce your problem. Maybe there's some information you didn't provide that can explain the difference between what I'm seeing and what you're seeing? Please add more information so I can understand what's different and help you."
Re:I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not dec...
by wpietri on Monday September 26, 2016 @05:34PM
(#12585789)
That may be what you're thinking. But it's often not how it comes across, especially when it's the totality of the reply. If you want to say the rest of that, I'd suggest you actually try saying the rest of that.
Often the real problem for novices is that they don't know enough to ask the right question; good questions require that you already be pretty close to the answer. So the real process of helping somebody with technology often begins by turning a bad question into a good question.
So basically, I think "works for me" is disrespectful. Mostly I see it used defensively; the goal is to make the querent go away again. If somebody doesn't want to help, fine, I respect that. But in that case, they should not put themselves into a position where they are answering questions from novices.