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Hello all,
As much as I know that many people here, professional and non-professional Photoshop users, as well as Adobe personnel lend much free and helpful advice to fellow Photoshop users, I suggest that a short reply such as "Read the FAQ" is generally NOT a good answer. I feel I’ve seen that type of response enough that I would like to comment on it here.
Does simply referring someone to the FAQ list potentially steer them toward finding their answer? Yes…but only if the topic headings or content of the postings contains words that even the most inexperienced user is likely to get a "hit" on, when performing a search. I know I’ve performed enough searches that left me coming up empty-handed that I can empathize with others who have the same bad luck.
One of the most common topics that people are referred to the FAQs for is that of color problems that can usually be resolved by running Adobe Gamma. Using that example, let’s pretend that I have come to the forum as a new user who saw that their palettes were tinted purple on their screen. Efforts to search the FAQs using keywords or phrases such as "purple tint", "palette color", etc., turn up nothing that appears to address my problem. Trying to think of some better keywords, "wrong colors" leads me to someone whose printed images were off-color, with Adobe Gamma discussed in the solution. OK, while my problem isn’t exactly this, maybe the solution is similar…I’ll give that a try. Or, maybe I’m a little skittish with "trying" fixes on a PC so I ignore that post and keep on searching for one more reflective of my problem.
It is tiring and sometimes frustrating to keep hunting and hunting for a solution to a problem, particularly if there’s a good chance that a polite question to other users might speed me on my way. Sometimes questions aren’t posed in a manner that is respectful of the user community as they should be, and thus a more haughty response is sometimes seen. But, ignoring those and focusing upon the more respectfully presented questions, I think we can encourage folks to consult the FAQ list while also offering some degree of more useful help. Once a person has successfully found an answer to one or more problems among the FAQs, the more likely they are to first return there before posting what seems an all-too-familiar question to many of us.
The next time any of us feel like responding with "read the FAQ" or even the similar "RTFM" (read the fine / friggin’ / fabulous… manual), I encourage us to elaborate with at least a little extra help. Staying with my prior example, a response of "Yours is a common question and you should find the answers you need by reviewing the FAQ list after doing a search on Adobe Gamma". The answer is implied yet maybe it will also encourage the person posing the question to actually go to the FAQs and learn a little more about problems related to theirs.
Lending help to others can also be trying of one’s patience when we seem to hear the same questions over and over, or when we simply have other tasks pressing upon us that we need to accomplish. To that end, I certainly understand why a somewhat curt "half-answer" is sometimes offered, but I really think it does little in serving the needs of a user-to-user forum like this. Also, if a new user of Photoshop finds this forum helpful, then they may return such help later, as they become more proficient users themself.
I think this is a great forum and many thanks are extended to each person who shares their knowledge with us all here, even when said in a more abrupt manner than usual. Heck, we all have days when our patience is wearing down.
Thanks,
Daryl
As much as I know that many people here, professional and non-professional Photoshop users, as well as Adobe personnel lend much free and helpful advice to fellow Photoshop users, I suggest that a short reply such as "Read the FAQ" is generally NOT a good answer. I feel I’ve seen that type of response enough that I would like to comment on it here.
Does simply referring someone to the FAQ list potentially steer them toward finding their answer? Yes…but only if the topic headings or content of the postings contains words that even the most inexperienced user is likely to get a "hit" on, when performing a search. I know I’ve performed enough searches that left me coming up empty-handed that I can empathize with others who have the same bad luck.
One of the most common topics that people are referred to the FAQs for is that of color problems that can usually be resolved by running Adobe Gamma. Using that example, let’s pretend that I have come to the forum as a new user who saw that their palettes were tinted purple on their screen. Efforts to search the FAQs using keywords or phrases such as "purple tint", "palette color", etc., turn up nothing that appears to address my problem. Trying to think of some better keywords, "wrong colors" leads me to someone whose printed images were off-color, with Adobe Gamma discussed in the solution. OK, while my problem isn’t exactly this, maybe the solution is similar…I’ll give that a try. Or, maybe I’m a little skittish with "trying" fixes on a PC so I ignore that post and keep on searching for one more reflective of my problem.
It is tiring and sometimes frustrating to keep hunting and hunting for a solution to a problem, particularly if there’s a good chance that a polite question to other users might speed me on my way. Sometimes questions aren’t posed in a manner that is respectful of the user community as they should be, and thus a more haughty response is sometimes seen. But, ignoring those and focusing upon the more respectfully presented questions, I think we can encourage folks to consult the FAQ list while also offering some degree of more useful help. Once a person has successfully found an answer to one or more problems among the FAQs, the more likely they are to first return there before posting what seems an all-too-familiar question to many of us.
The next time any of us feel like responding with "read the FAQ" or even the similar "RTFM" (read the fine / friggin’ / fabulous… manual), I encourage us to elaborate with at least a little extra help. Staying with my prior example, a response of "Yours is a common question and you should find the answers you need by reviewing the FAQ list after doing a search on Adobe Gamma". The answer is implied yet maybe it will also encourage the person posing the question to actually go to the FAQs and learn a little more about problems related to theirs.
Lending help to others can also be trying of one’s patience when we seem to hear the same questions over and over, or when we simply have other tasks pressing upon us that we need to accomplish. To that end, I certainly understand why a somewhat curt "half-answer" is sometimes offered, but I really think it does little in serving the needs of a user-to-user forum like this. Also, if a new user of Photoshop finds this forum helpful, then they may return such help later, as they become more proficient users themself.
I think this is a great forum and many thanks are extended to each person who shares their knowledge with us all here, even when said in a more abrupt manner than usual. Heck, we all have days when our patience is wearing down.
Thanks,
Daryl
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