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Why oh Why....

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 10:48 am
by nielsene
[mini, pointless rant on]
What's up with the "I'm just a newbie/ee/33" and "LOL" on so many posts. We don't care if you're new to PHP or not; we'll still help you. We appreciate it when people post a "thank you" post to "close" a thread after the problem has been solved, but why does everyone it seems add a "LOL' to their thank you. I doubt they are actually laughing out loud. What do they think adding that adds to their post, or to our impression of them?

When I see that ('LOL' in a thank you post, not other places typically) I know I get less inclined to help that person again. It tends to make me feel like they are down-playing the thanks and are ridiculing the problem they had. Furthermore, to me, it seems that the 'LOL's imply that use doesn't think it was a "real" problem and probably hasn't learned from it. Often we see almost identical problems being posted by the same people which confirms this view for me. Or I have to wonder if they are laughing at us for helping them.....

I can see two types of problems/questions liking to have laughter inducing effects. One, the extremely easy problem that is embarassing to the poster. I think this is where post of these cases arise. Yes, being able to laugh at yourself over something stupid is a good feature, but you also have to take it seriously enough to learn from it..... In most cases, reading the stickies would have solved the problem. Or learning simple debugging techniques, such as "look for the missing semicolon/missing brace, etc".

The other case is when its one of the weird interactions between lots of different components that "interesting" on a more hackish level. But I think people posting these types of gotchas are much more inclined to use a smiley than a LOL. And in this case it seems like the poster is providing a service back to the community. "Hey look if you use foo with bar you can get some unexpected results due to the interaction with baz. Isn't that interesting?" type of thing.

[end rant]

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 10:57 am
by cactus
Maybe we need L@S, Laughs at self.

;)

Regards,

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 11:36 am
by redhair
When i get a lot of lol in a reply, i instantly think the poster is below 18, just started with php, and the kiddo thinks he is neo from the matrix. (And probable <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> of, because he couldnt solve it's own problem.)

The reason they give a lol in the end, is probable because you solved there problem, and they didnt have to do anything for it. How easy can it be!

Another idear i have is that it might be someone who is pulling our legg. Someone that actualy knowes a lot of php, had a few beers, got bored and thinks..hey, let's ask a really stupid question, and respond in the most childish way possible. ...i played with the idear to, after seeing some real wacko posts...but i was able to shake it off. I only play roles with my girl :wink:

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 11:40 am
by cactus
Well I do use LOL alot, but I guess that's because I've been using it for about 6 years ! Hard habit to break, unlike smoking for which I have quit for 2 weeks now (yay) but OT.

I do agree though with some of this thread, a proper thank you is always appreciated.

Regards,

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 11:42 am
by Sinnix
redhair wrote:Another idear i have is that it might be someone who is pulling our legg.

uhhh... question... how do you echo something to the screen??? lol lol


:wink: (don't kill me.)

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 1:44 pm
by nielsene
cactus, I wasn't objecting to LOL in general just to its use in thanks type messages, especially as it makes it seem like the poster is just going through the motions of thanking....

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 3:44 pm
by cactus
Wasn't suggesting you were Eric :)

Regards,

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 4:29 pm
by volka
I'm most gratefull we had n0 1337 (im)poster here so far ;)