Episode: 1033
Title: HPR1033: Go RTFM
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1033/hpr1033.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 17:42:21

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Hello all my name is apparently shale and I had a thought occurred to me today and this
will be my first hpr episode because when I did one with the 1000 and 24th episode
it did not count so this is a response to 5150 and so I'm doing one. I wanted to talk
about as you read from the title go rtfm and if anybody who does not know rtfm means
go read means read the fucking manner and I love new users and I understand they need
help. I really do. I was a new user so was most of us who consider of our self at least
a steady user if not in advance to at least someone who can help another person who's just
starting and I come to think about it I get frustrated with users in my work profession
I'm going to be it but the more I think about I can never get upset with them anymore.
They're never going to learn they don't want to learn teaching them is no point. There's
two other users who frustrate me the most. The ones who know what they're doing but don't
learn I have not met in the Linux world but at jobs I have seen them. Those are the ones
I can't be frustrated with the most either even though it's annoying I know that they're
not going to change. The most annoying users are the ones who say they want to learn but
instead they always ask for help. Now help there's no shame in asking for help. The problem
with this is I've noticed some users who will ask for help they'll get it but they won't
learn they'll ask questions they'll keep asking questions. I started in Linux and I had
someone help me but he didn't help me all the time and he didn't go tell me to RTFM but he
knew I wanted to learn it so there's no reason for him to say it. I looked it up if I had a
problem running at the time was a bunch of 9.10 I would go to a form and I would Google it I would
see the problem and yes I did what some say don't do but no one warned me at the time
paste random code in and get it to work and I've had people tell me it's like what does this
mean like why don't you just give me this straight up fact that fixes it and you don't tell
me what it means although I understand the frustration with this this is the perfect time
for you to learn what it is at the time it was at get update or upgrade and I would just
piece by piece take it apart and learn what the packages were maybe I didn't read the manual
might not the full manual but I read enough to know what it did and what effect it had on the
system but there have been times where I've asked for help and admittedly I should have just read
the manual at first and that would have saved them time and me time I just think we don't need to
pee in people's way and these users are so I want to say I'm a little nervous I'm sorry I don't
know why I had to break that in but it just it calms me down but now but those types of users
are just they're not good because the old adage is give a man a fish who live for a day
teach a man to fish he will live for a lifetime and it's so true for anything and I want those
users to actually learn to fish with the basis of what the people help them but slowly go out
from there if they're running a mint system go learn what it took to make a mint system like
not hardcore coding but where did mint come from it's a derivative of Ubuntu where did Ubuntu
come from it's a derivative of the day mean where did they be in come from where did they being
get its name where did me get its name what are the reasons behind it I'm a very curious mind
learning look it up it helps you for the users who are listening who don't want to hear RTFM
or our kind of those people who need to branch out they're still asking for more help than
they should they should already be branching out be curious it helps you if you read period it's
not bad for you it improves you and I just want to say to all of y'all listening that I'm not
going to be afraid anymore to say RTFM but I will never mean it in a bad way it's a way
for the users growth and nothing more if I see that the question they asked is something they
should have already looked into the begin with after talking with them for a while I will go ahead
and tell them read the manual so I want to say to everybody have a good day and RTFM this is a paranoid
shell you can get me at a paranoid shell at gmail.com for any questions and have a good day
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