[a recent rant]
All the various comments on this topic basically point to one thing in
common. The general population as a whle is getting lazier every year,
and its just too easy to pass the buck and let others do your job. Be
it looking something up, or taking responsibilitiy on your job to do
what your actually being paid to do.

Americans on a whole are getting very very lazy, and it don;'t stop at
americas borders either!


There are elements of truth in the "everyone is lazy" argument (although
it is a wide generalization), but I don't think it addresses the
original poster. Here is a newsgroup populated by people who claim to be
interested in recreational gardening. It is only natural for someone
with a question on that subject to ask for opinions. I don't think
that's "not doing their homework". That's going to a convenient source
for answers. Maybe not the best source (given the multitude of opinions
out there), but the quickest. You might call going to the most
convenient source lazy; I'd call it a response to the ever-increasing
pace of life these days. A lack of patience is another symptom.

More to the point is the set of rude answers to new posters. In any
newsgroup populated by a group of regulars, those regulars may be
expected to post rude comments at each other occasionally (some more
than others). After all, friends can insult each other without making or
taking offense. Depends on the individuals.

Suppose your car developed an annoying squeek, whistle, thump and/or
groan. If you took it to a local repair place, would you expect to be
cursed out for not looking up those symptoms on the internet or at your
local library so you could tell them just what the problem was? If you
call up Car Talk, you might get that, but they laugh when they do that
so you know they don't really mean it. Why then should someone looking
for information here be insulted by people they don't know just because
someone thinks their question is stupid?

It is written: there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.