Friendliness towards "newbies"

[distantvoices]

To whom it may concern...

You don't need to be friendly.

You *have* to be polite.

Respectful.

Not to treat the other one as if his thoughts and queries are *crap*.

Well, and a bit of friendliness always helps. It makes the other one confident in that he's welcome and that it isn't wrong to place a question.

Please bear this in mind ere you have a go at others for asking something you consider utterly crap or what so ever. Either give a helpful reply, a good pointer towards sources of knowledge or leave it alone.

Thanks.

PS: It's not as if I were the biggest and holiest angel here, but at lest I stay polite and refrain from insulting ppl.

[Kemp]

Another thing to consider is that everybody has their own area of knowledge when it comes to this sort of thing (except for the likes of Pype, Brendan, Candy and Solar who pretty much embody our entire race's knowledge on OS's). For me personally, there's things I know about which I don't mind explaining to people, there's things I think I know but I'm not 100% sure of which I will briefly talk about but advise them not to live by my advice, and there's things I know very little/nothing about which I post asking on info for (at the moment that would be multi-cpu and 64bit cpu support). Point is, we're all learning, and while these people might not have the experience to be able to write an OS right now they still need to find that out and there are much better ways to do it than having a go at them and telling them to get lost. They need to know what sort of experience will be helpful to them, they need to know what sort of level of knowledge they'll require before starting.

[Solar]

Another thing to consider is that everybody has their own area of knowledge when it comes to this sort of thing (except for the likes of Pype, Brendan, Candy and Solar who pretty much embody our entire race's knowledge on OS's).

ROTFL!

You're sure you're talking about me? I might know my C++ and my C library quite well, and I do have some experience as maintenance programmer, but apart from doing a GCC Cross-Compiler and a BareBonesC++ before the respective Wiki pages existed, my actual OS experience is still well below the 100 lines mark.

I hope Pype and the others who actually wrote OS code instead of doodling along aren't offended...

I'm among the mere mortals around here, given Moderator status by accident and trying not to bork it too often.

[pini]

Haha,

I find this thread (and the one closed too) very interesting. For example, today I learned the meaning of the verb 'to ramble'.
BTW, what does bork mean ? Neither wordnet nor my english dictionnary know about this word. Is it some kind of slang ?

[Kemp]

It basically refers to screwing up or going wrong, as in "my code borks on line 145".

Solar: No offense to anyone meant, lol. Any time I've seen you give help it's good help, so just assume you fill the GCC/C/C++ role in expert-land

[Colonel Kernel]

Although I disagree with the unfriendly tone in that other related thread, I understand the frustration. It would be nice if we could split the OS forum in two -- one for beginner and "help me to debug this common problem" type questions, and the other for more advanced topics ("I need help with virtual memory/multi-CPU/design questions/etc."). This way, beginner questions (and the beginners themselves) are not discouraged, while everyone else doesn't have to weed through their posts to get to the good stuff.

[GLneo]

speaking of "noobs" i (wend 11) tried an os knowing NOTHING:

Code: Select all

    MOV AH, 02
    MOV DL, 65
    INT 21h
    MOV AH, 4Ch
    INT 21h

yes i know a actualy tried returning to dos but we all were "noobs" once, it is good wend people wright ultra basic os tutorials and anser "noob" question, i was very happy to find some one willing to explain something, and i hopped wend i got smart i could help others too, and isn't that what this forum is about, o well maby im rambling

[zyp]

Although I disagree with the unfriendly tone in that other related thread, I understand the frustration. It would be nice if we could split the OS forum in two -- one for beginner and "help me to debug this common problem" type questions, and the other for more advanced topics ("I need help with virtual memory/multi-CPU/design questions/etc."). This way, beginner questions (and the beginners themselves) are not discouraged, while everyone else doesn't have to weed through their posts to get to the good stuff. :)

If that happens then everyone with knowledge will move over to the advanced section and it'll be noone left to help beginners. ;)

[GLneo]

like i said i like helping beginners

[Warrior]

Perhaps we could bold the "How to ask questions (New and Improved)" and maybe make it glow pink and have it fly across the screen so people can read it.

[Solar]

BTW, what does bork mean ? Neither wordnet nor my english dictionnary know about this word. Is it some kind of slang ?

In cases like this, you should also check The Jargon File.

[distantvoices]

Hehe, Solar, you are certainly a well known entity on this board. And with your always at hands amigaos quotes, that's no wonder. *sfg*

@Colonel Kernel: I've had my own problems with certain users a few years ago *cough*nuno*coughcough*, who have shown a certain level of immature stubbornness to grasp simple explanations so that one 's been bound to wish they'd be gone for good. But I wouldn't wish one extra board for the newbies - who would stroll into it after a while?

man, today I oughta go running.

[Candy]

Just one small note for those who think of posting a thread similar to the other, and those who get the feeling "oh there's another n00b, can't stand them":

You have been a n00b once too, you did make the same stupid mistakes, you did come to fora that were not intended for those things (even though this one is, in a way) and you did take your time from the people you looked up to back then. So, inversely, assume there will be others going to your fora asking stupid questions, making obvious mistakes without noticing and sort of wanting somebody to help them, preferably somebody who knows what he/she is talking about. On a sidenote, even though you might think those n00bs are stupid, you yourself don't know it all (nor does anybody for that matter, I'm including myself). Always know humility to others and don't ever consider you better than the rest.

[_OScoder]

MOV AH, 02
MOV DL, 65
INT 21h
MOV AH, 4Ch
INT 21h

Lol, that one got me to and I was stuck for ages trying to work out why it hadn't printed the line I imported into some bare-bones bootloader I stole from some tutorial. It's funny how many assembly tutorials fail to mention that they only work in DOS.

[Tora OS]

I am a n00b. And certainly without the help from a site like this and other various OS Dev sites i would still be "trying to return to dos" (note: I never did try that, but i did try other stupid things)


and yes I feel very stupid at times because i make some of the stupidest mistakes, but i learn from those mistakes (most of the time )