[FORK] Tangential Discussion about what advice is "on topic"
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@mathlete2 ,
Considering all the hullabaloo over this, it would have been just as productive, considering the lack of discussion by the OP, nor even a followup question from him in his own thread, to have just answered to him “Yes” or “No”, to his question, which was, can NPP do this.He didn’t ask for the solution, outright, though he may have made it there eventually. Perhaps, we all should stop being so helpful at first, and wait until a poster shows they’re actually interested in true engagement with the community to make clear their intents. I know when I came here with my questions about UDL’s it was after I had at the least, read the manual, and then tried to figure out what I read. Only @PeterJones seemed to have been the initial helpful person that tried to get through my thick head that I was misreading or not doing something right. But it was a back and forth, not a “do this for me”.
Only later did I start getting more suggestions and help from many of you guys. Maybe we need to take that stand back approach instead of trying to spoon feed people that come here for quick and easy answers instead of doing the initial footwork that I’m sure almost all of you have had to do, to get to the level of understanding you have.
If we assume they are stupid, instead of giving them gentle nudges to where they need to go, to learn how to do it themselves, we’ll never be able to teach them to fish so they can feed themselves for life. If the question isn’t an easily answered question, directing them elsewhere not knowing their capabilities will only confuse them, no matter who of us refers them a solution.
Just my $.02 worth, though I suspect it’s not even worth that much. :-)
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@Alan-Kilborn said in [FORK] Tangential Discussion about what advice is "on topic":
To me, someone just wanted to show off their powershell skills, and thus couldn’t resist the lure of posting such a solution, even after the problem was reasonably solved.
Once again, “reasonably solved” is a stretch - see my previous comment, which explains why the previous responses weren’t particularly helpful for solving the problem.
Also, making assumptions on someone’s motivation for providing a batch and/or powershell-based solution (or any other type of solution for that matter) isn’t fair, especially since you yourself have shown a willingness to post batch-based solutions on this forum. If you must know, the code I provided in my post was based on scripts that I had put together for my own purposes - it took little time to copy the relevant pieces over, adapt it to the OP’s situation, and run a few quick tests to make sure it worked as expected. Given that neither of the other suggestions seemed to have a ready-made solution, it seemed sensible to share the solution that I had managed to put together.
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@Lycan-Thrope said in [FORK] Tangential Discussion about what advice is "on topic":
He didn’t ask for the solution, outright
Technically, the OP didn’t explicitly ask for a solution, but I think it’s safe to assume that, on forums like this, questions of the form “can <product> do this?” imply an “if so, how?” element.
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@mathlete2 said in [FORK] Tangential Discussion about what advice is "on topic":
since you yourself have shown a willingness to post batch-based solutions on this forum.
The problem with your citing twice, this particular example, @mathlete2 , is that it was the appropriate response because it was a non-Notepad++ specific solution to affect Notepad++ itself. There currently is no other tool or option, that could have resolved the problem the OP presented to fix the problem upon launch of an NPP instance.
That’s not the case with this OP problem. There was already a solution, presented by @PeterJones . He was given the answer and a link to investigate. Again, teach them to fish and they can eat for life. Spoon feed them, and you’ve got to feed them everytime they’re hungry.@mathlete2 said in [FORK] Tangential Discussion about what advice is "on topic":
Technically, the OP didn’t explicitly ask for a solution, but I think it’s safe to assume that, on forums like this, questions of the form “can <product> do this?” imply an “if so, how?” element.
There goes that
assumptionword again. And again, he was given an answer and a link to investigate. We need to see if he actually needed more help if he came back with an “if so, how?” response. He didn’t. He still hasn’t. Perhaps, because he followed that link and figured out how to do what he wanted. When we help, help them, help themselves. Less is more. :-) -
@Lycan-Thrope said in [FORK] Tangential Discussion about what advice is "on topic":
it was a non-Notepad++ specific solution to affect Notepad++ itself.
This is misleading: the solution demonstrated how to remove lines from a plain text file; the files in question simply happened to be NP++ files. Would it have been that much better if I had geared my solution to NP++ configuration files, and told the OP to figure out how to adapt the methodology to his own files? That seems unnecessary…
There currently is no other tool or option, that could have resolved the problem the OP presented to fix the problem upon launch of an NPP instance
That is incorrect: I had already explained what needed to be done manually in that thread, and those steps were not particularly tedious to do manually. Alan merely gave instructions on how to script the process.
@Lycan-Thrope said in [FORK] Tangential Discussion about what advice is "on topic":
There was already a solution, presented by @PeterJones . He was given the answer and a link to investigate.
As I’ve said multiple times, neither of the two responses presented actual solutions. To use your fishing analogy: the responses did not teach the OP how to fish, they directed the OP to a fishing supply shop without indicating which specific supplies needed to be picked up for this particular fishing trip (or at least where to find them within the store). I, on the other hand, gave him an actual rod (code for a batch script), and told him how to apply the bait and tackle that he already had (template and name list) so that casting the line (running the script) would allow him to catch his fish (obtain the files for each name on his list).
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At this point, we’ve all had our say, and there are people who are never going to agree with each other on some of the issues raised. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by continued bickering. (I’m not going to enforce a stop – ie, lock the topic – but I will highly encourage people to just move on.)
If Don comes in and posts more guidance, great. If not, Guy, myself, and the other moderators will continue to do our best to keep the discussion focused on Notepad++ while trying to not be authoritarian.
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@PeterJones
This thread reminds me of my old days at Dell when some newbie would reply all to a company-wide email with “please take me off this list” which would quickly be followed by 50 to 100 others! Mildly entertaining but not very productive.<mild_rant>
I don’t understand why people get their knickers in a wad over whether some post is or is not sufficiently NPP-related. Sure, moderators need to check for spam, but regular users should stop pointing fingers and get about their business.
</mild_rant> -
My demands here are much lower - I welcome anyone who can give me a good advice, even in an unexpected way. After all “beggars can’t be choosers” ;-)
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Hi @donho, @peterjones and All,
Peter, I totally agree with your last post !
If @donho comes along to enlighten us on what should be considered “on topic” or “off topic”, we"ll try to follow his recommendations. If not, let’s just move on !
Best Regards,
guy038
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@Jim-Dailey said:
…knickers in a wad…
A G∞FY kind of comment.
@guy038 said:
If @donho comes along to enlighten us…
Given his level of participation here, I’d have to guess that Don doesn’t care.
And, going forward, neither do I.
