EDIT: I find the issue with the candor on the internet is lack of context 90% of the time.
While agree some internet users are a bit too gung-ho with RTFM, I think it's unfair to lump them with trolls. While veterans can be harsh and unfriendly, the RTFM response is often warranted (though, again, it could be phrased more nicely -- and the default assumption should be that the person seeking help is well-intentioned). Otherwise, many online communities would be completely overrun by people demanding help with minimum effort on their part.
"RTFM" is not trollish behavior, because trolls have a different goal: to disrupt communities, start flamewars and generally annoy the hell out of people. It's not merely being "unfriendly"; in fact some trolls fake cluelesness instead of anger.
That doesn't mean everybody needs to be teacher/mentor/educator. But the people who don't want to be can also just keep out of the conversation, instead of rudely pointing to some 300 page manual and telling someone with passion and interest to screw off.
RTFM is aimed at help vampires (recommended reading: http://www.skidmore.edu/~pdwyer/e/eoc/help_vampire.htm). Help vampires do not grow a community; they destroy it. These are people you do not want in your community anyway. Unlike actual beginners, who learn and then proceed to become valuable contributors (unless of course they are treated harshly by veterans, in which case they simply leave), help vampires are never helpful. They ask the same question again and again, don't pay attention to any cues, don't read anything, and seldom provide context or follow-ups to their problem. And when you've wasted time with one (more often than not fruitlessly), the next one comes in. And they are legion. The end result, like the first article I mentioned claims, is that your community of well-intentioned volunteers is destroyed. So a polite RTFM is often the best response: if the person was an actual beginner, they'll read TFM -- and follow-up questions are often welcome, since they show the asker has actually made an effort. If not, they'll leave and you haven't wasted any valuable time.
In fact, help vampires are often indistinguishable from trolls, in that they have the same community-disrupting effect.
RTFM has always been part of the hacker culture (also see: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way, http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html). It has nothing to do with trolls.
Even just politely linking a similar question and response is better than responding with RTFM.
> RTFM has always been part of the hacker culture
That doesn't necessarily make it a good thing, or anything worth keeping.
> That doesn't necessarily make it a good thing, or anything worth keeping.
But it does make it not trollish behavior, which we were discussing. Hacker culture was not trollish, this was always part of hacker culture, therefore it's neither new nor trollish behavior.
I think a variation of RTFM, let's call it GentleRTFM, is both worth keeping and necessary.
I'm in agreement on that. Although I also think Socratic method should also be employed in those cases.
This is actually the RTFM-ish situations I hate the most; specifically as someone searching a forum and finding a thread or threads close to my own question, only to find the only responses are rudely unhelpful.
I get not answering an insipid post, or a mod locking/deleting one but replying to a question you find dumb or repetitive is a waste of time to everyone involved.
Just like "Don't feed the Trolls," I feel one shouldn't raise the post count of a time sink.
Answering with a link to the canonical question doesn't seem rude to me, however.
Overworked seniors simply don't respond on forums due to lack of time. Seniors with time and willingness to answer answer how they know. RTFM are doing what they are doing just to stroke their own ego.
Being jerk does not imply skill nor lack of it. It just being jerk.
Other than that, I agree they are not necessarily more senior or experienced. That's why I used the term "veterans": they are old timers in the community in question, have seen countless newbies come and go, and must suffer the onslaught of help vampires with needy requests and an ungrateful, instant-gratification attitude every day. They may not necessarily be seniors, but they are the people who actually form the community, because help vampires ask their poorly-formulated questions and go away forever, only to be replaced by newer ones. They do not tend to "grow" the community, only destroy it by attrition. How would you deal with them?
Again, "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way" ( http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html ) should be mandatory reading for online participation in online communities. Some of it is even common sense. And if you don't have the time to read it or TFM or the FAQ, why should volunteers take the time to help you, anyway?
Overwhelming majority of RTFM ate not trying to manage community. That involves more then just putting in RTFM with some insults every time you feel like.
I agree that some of rtfm consider themselves community and are trying to put off newcomers - and keep their own social status within forum high. That is just closed circle jerk, exactly like any other. Most of these communities have many other members who form them equally or even more and don't behave this way.
Elaborate faq on how to ask question is great and I would treat it seriosly, assuming the rest of discussion has similarly high standards. Except that rest of discussion is neither precise, nor well pharsed, nothing like that. So yeah, where it is consistent with general quality of discussion, cool. Where it represents double standard, meh.
The response will be a combination of social quarantine, and an upgraded intellectual immune system on the part of netizens. I think Trump's election and the damage his presidency is likely to inflict will be a bit of a turning point in the collective attitude to trolls in general.
This is as old as humanity, and has always been the case for the majority. See the chapter "Social Proof" in the book "Influence":
https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Rober...