On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:59:40 +0000, Anonymous wrote:

> In article <pan.2005.11.29.00.20.22.856830@eelbash.fastmail.fm> admin
> <admin@eelbash.fastmail.fm> wrote: 
> 
>
> It's a breeze. It's difficult to stop it from working "out of the box".

There was a crackpot theory floating around a few years ago which theorized 
that the first time you tried to do something, it might be difficult, but th
at mysterious entities were somehow produced as a result of the first attemp
t, which made subsequent at
tempts much easier than could be explained by normal learning.

I can understand why somebody would have dreamed that up: I have seen people
 come in here saying they could not configure this or that, when it was obvi
ous to those of us who already knew how to do it, that what they were trying
 to do was easy, but perhap
s a bit difficult to put into words.

I think the problem is a lack of good documentation, and an inability, on th
e part of people willing to help, to clearly articulate their knowledge.

Typing instructions is a poor way to get them across. You need the integrati
on of the instructions plus what is on the screen, and, if all you can do is
 type the instructions in, it makes for a lot of typing, which people don't 
want to do, understandably.

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On Tue, 29 Nov 2005, Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer
<nobody@cypherpunks.to> wrote:
>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:59:40 +0000, Anonymous wrote:
> 
>
>There was a crackpot theory floating around a few years ago which
>theorized that the first time you tried to do something, it might be
>difficult, but that mysterious entities were somehow produced as a result
>of the first attempt, which made subsequent attempts much easier than
>could be explained by normal learning.
>
>I can understand why somebody would have dreamed that up: I have seen
>people come in here saying they could not configure this or that, when it
>was obvious to those of us who already knew how to do it, that what they
>were trying to do was easy, but perhaps a bit difficult to put into words.
>
>I think the problem is a lack of good documentation, and an inability, on
>the part of people willing to help, to clearly articulate their knowledge.
>
>Typing instructions is a poor way to get them across. You need the
>integration of the instructions plus what is on the screen, and, if all
>you can do is type the instructions in, it makes for a lot of typing,
>which people don't want to do, understandably.

If 9999 out of 10000 people can make it work with the instructions as they
are, and you can't, the problem is not with the instructions.

In other words, some people are just too stupid to enjoy anonymity.

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