You make some good points. My point is when a person asks even a simple
question and somebody answers it, everybody learns from it. The thought
of making square watermelon or veggies with faces on never crossed my
mind, but having somebody ask about them and the sharing of knowledge I
learned about it even though the info is on the net.
I have been reading this group for over 3 years, I hardly ever post, but
I learned a lot from just reading it. I never would have known about
different kinds of tomatoes, peppers, ect.. without somebody asking
about them. Yes if I wanted to know what kind of tomato tasted the best
I could do a google search...but it never crossed my mind, nor did I
think I needed to know this. But reading the group when somebody would
ask a question like this I learned what people think is the best.
Another note when people ask "dumb" or "lazy" questions it usually
starts a nice thread when the subject actually changes into something
different, thus more to learn.

If your neighbor stops by and says he wants to know what the best
tasting tomato is and you know he has a T1 line and is on the net 20 hrs
out of the day, would you flame him or would you have an intelligent
conversation with him and brag about the luck you had with a certain
kind ? Just treat people like you would in real life.

Another note say maybe only a few people responded to a question a few
years ago and their information is outdated or even wrong, should they
go by that and maybe harm themselves just because they aren't allowed to
ask a question that was answered before.

Repeating Decimal wrote:

in article , Gyve Turquoise at
wrote on 5/22/03 11:57 PM:



I'm not sure Bill was flaming, I think he was making a joke! I said I didn't
know what "hydroponic supply store" was in Japanese, and he said not to ask
about elementary stuff. Obviously this question is very difficult for
everyone to answer, so I think Bill was being ironic. I think he really
meant "don't ask this kind of difficult question to me".



I normally try to be nice to posters even if they ask inane questions. On
the other hand, when it seems that someone asks for help without making the
slightest effort to learn but expect others to do their leg work for them, I
do tend not to suffer them gladly. I do realize, however, that sometimes
their effort is not well expressed by their words. I apologize for those
lapses in my decorum.

Problems like that tend to show up in scientific newsgroups. Students
sometimes ask for solutions to their homework without any effort on their
own behalf. Such posts greatly irritate me, and my replies cannot hid my
frustration with them. I also get irritated when someone expects specific
answer they can look up as well as the people they are asking. For this
group such a question may be: how much nitrogen is there in ammonium
sulfate? Even if you do not have enough chemical knowledge to do that for
yourself, it is something easily looked up in a gardening book that covers
fertilizers.

Bill