So I am currently working on a section of my book that examines the duality/tension between sharing and self-reliance among hackers. I have some great examples from IRC of sharing but none of RTFMing, which indeed, is more rare. Do you have in your quote file some funny example of RTFM (or a kindred ‘eff you’) or know of a mailing list discussion where this happened? I would love to include in the book. For those that are not geeky readers, RTFM = Read The Fucking Manual and is a stylized rebuff that some people find very offensive and others less so because it is a canned response. Whatever the case…here is a snippet from the book:
On the one hand, hackers speak of the importance of learning from others and construe knowledge production as a collective enterprise—this rhetoric is often matched in practice by truly generous and copious acts of constant sharing. In any given minute of the day, I can head over to one of the developers IRC channels and there will be some developers asking a question, getting an answer, and giving thanks. On the other hand, hackers at times express an extreme commitment to individual self-reliance, which can be at times displayed in a quite abrasive and elitist tone. Hacker discourse creates fine discriminations among the projects of individual programmers and valorizes independent control over technical environments and production
I have some great examples of sharing-in-action on IRC because frankly, that is what happens much of the time. I also have a great analytical discussion of RTFM among DD’s but what I don’t have is an RTFM in action.
I can 1) spend the next 48 hours straight starting at #debian and other channels to see whether one comes up and just might have to do so.
But if you have some IRC log/quote file that captures this fine moment or know of a mailing list discussion where this happened, can you please pass along?
ps. Here is my favorite description of RTFM:
[RTFM] is a big chromatic dragon with bloodshot beady eyes and fangs the size of oars. RTFM is me screaming at you as fireballs come out of my mouth to get off your precious no-good tush, march down to the local bookstore or MAN page repository, and get the eff off my back because I’m trying very hard to get some freakin’ work done. Jeez.
Hope this helps a little: http://bash.org/?search=rtfm
Comment by ukl — August 11, 2009 @ 5:53 am
THANSKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
It does! Thank you SO SO much!!!
Biella
Comment by Biella — August 11, 2009 @ 5:55 am
I like http://lmgtfy.com/ as a slightly less offensive means of encouraging the seeker of knowledge to do their own research. It’s a visual aid stunning in its clarity and effectiveness.
Comment by Jason Spears — August 11, 2009 @ 6:18 am
haha, awesome
Comment by Biella — August 11, 2009 @ 6:34 am
A slightly less polite version of lmgtfy is JFGI, although it’s currently not loading (and, it’s not just me).
Comment by Matt — August 11, 2009 @ 6:49 am
There’s also a popular picture of Bart Simpson.
Comment by Marius Gedminas — August 11, 2009 @ 8:31 am
Don’t know if it’s appropriate, but there is alot of self-deprecating RTFMs in the Cycling ’74 forums.
People apologizing for asking a question after having RTFM, or people claiming they have RTFM over and over again to no avail. I always thought the pre-emptive self-RTFM was really interesting.
Cycling ’74 Forum RTFM search.
Comment by Mike — August 11, 2009 @ 9:37 am
I’ll second the recommendation for lmgtfy; I’ve seen that used several times on IRC, to great effect.
You might want to note the culture that encourages such responses as well. Most hackers don’t give RTFM-style responses (or equivalent) unless they know that the answer would show up with the obvious search/manpage/etc. Many hackers learned via self-study, and almost all hackers believe that the ability to learn represents a much more important skill than the answer to any one particular question.
Personally, I’ve never said “RTFM” directly, but I’ve often pointed people at the obvious Google search or the specific manpage rather than the exact answer.
Comment by Anonymous — August 11, 2009 @ 9:40 am
In response to comment 7, regarding self-RTFM, see the entry in the Jargon File, sense 2.
Comment by Anonymous — August 11, 2009 @ 9:42 am
grep -i rtfm .xchat2/xchatlogs/*
Comment by pete — August 11, 2009 @ 10:17 am
Biella, I usually think of you as a straight shooter, but I find incredible your position that it could take 24 hours in #debian to see somebody being advised to RTM.
At any rate, here’s another shortcut: grab anybody’s #debian logs and grep for Abrotman.
Comment by James Vasile — August 11, 2009 @ 10:55 am
http://lists-archives.org/debian-user/2600545-apt-get-install-synaptic-sources-list.html
Where I lost my cool
Andy Cater
Comment by Andy Cater — August 11, 2009 @ 1:51 pm
And, in case you’re wondering, the magic search string in this case was
“Google is your friend amacater” and about the second link
Andy Cater
Comment by Andy Cater — August 11, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
Ayy right James, you caught me. I was BEING lazy (or more charitably, I am swamped for time). Thanks for the tip.
Andy, this is perfect:
“Only some readers of this list and posters to the list assume an
inordinately high level of knowledge: most expect you to at least
try to problem solve/show you have researched the problem and it
is sometimes helpful to show exactly what you have done. ”
So hope to integrate it as that makes my point exactly!
THANKS everyone!
Comment by Biella — August 11, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
Selection bias. I hypothesize that the kind of people doing work, and pissed at people asking under prepared questions, don’t hang around in IRC channels.
I get great co-operation from a chap who only reads his non-work emails once a month. I bet he rarely uses IRC.
Thus those people hanging around in IRC channels, not answering questions AND being rude, are probably trolls. Although sometimes RTFM is the best answer to a problem, although in some IRC channels you can just ask a bot to relay the relevant manual page for you.
Comment by Simon — August 11, 2009 @ 3:25 pm
Simon, I agree it is not common and often trollish but at times it does happen. I will dig up the links to the fantastic debian discussion on it and I think Andy’s post, while not RTFM is exactly the sentiment I am trying to capture: do your basic homework and then we are here to help.
Comment by Biella — August 11, 2009 @ 3:27 pm
thanks to dondelelcaro we have:
http://paste.debian.net/43942/
and
http://xkcd.com/293/
Comment by Biella — August 11, 2009 @ 5:57 pm
For whatever its worth, and not to spoil the mirth, but some communities have tried to become more sensitive about the RTFM “attitude”, and try not scare off the newbies.
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/content_management_with_plone/
“I respectfully disagree with those saying the community is hostile. Not only have people been generous with their time and responses, I searched over a year’s worth of Plone digests for nasty uses of RTFM. I found two. Only 2 in over a year of discussion, and in one of those the guy apologized and said he used RTFM as an innocent shorthand for “see the docs for more.”
http://www.meetup.com/bostonplone/members/3558134/groups/
“Boston PHP Meetup and BostonPHP.org are PHPeople ranging from newbie-to-techie. We discourage RTFM attitudes and encourage you to come see what PHP is all about.”
Then again, I always kinda liked this snide response, which I have seen crop up on occasion
http://www.designbyfire.com/000084.html
“I would RTFM if there was an FM to FR”
Anyway, rtfm doesn’t always translate well… I found this, looking around
http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2006/12/14/%23ubuntu.html
“Words like noob, jfgi, stfu or rtfm are not welcome in this channel. Period.”
And, a few funny, self-deprecating quotes here:
http://papakiteliatziar.gr/PloneQuotes
I think lots of projects might curate their own “best of” irc quotes – could be worth poking around a bit for.
cheers
Comment by Jonah — August 11, 2009 @ 9:10 pm
“On the one hand, hackers speak of the importance of learning from others .. [yet RTFM exists]”
I dont consider myself a “hacker” or a “geek” but I think the “hackers value self-study” is a red herring.
I think the missing link is that “learning” is only fun when it’s a 2-way process. If you ask me an interesting question about something I know about we both learn something and both have fun finding/discussing the answer. If I ask you a boring question that I could have just googled you get bored (and the conversation/phone call/IRC/mailing lists/whatever) becomes less fun.
It seems to me that interesting might mean
a) the answerer does not quite know the answer, but can work it; or
b) the question requires in-depth (rare (or perceived rare?)) knowledge
maybe the key is that the answerer demonstrates superior knowledge, thus gaining (imagined?) social(?) status. common/easy questions distract from such displays (of power? or status? seems to me that “hackers” are no different from any other group here (except maybe more abrupt, due to using IRC instead of phone/face-to-face), despite what they like to think
Comment by _llll_ — August 13, 2009 @ 11:34 am
lll,
I agree, there are not worlds apart from other social groups and individuals in terms of learning and self-study. That said, some social groups do differ in how they value and more important execute, modes of learning. Whether it is legal pedagogy in law school (which is so very different from what I got in my anthro program) or Talmudic scholars, there are some notable differences in terms of style and etiquette for learning.
But yes, your point about superior knowledge is well taken but I still see worth in mining and sifting through some of the different norms and styles by which learning unfolds.
Comment by Biella — August 13, 2009 @ 12:59 pm