Why I don't like "simple answers."

[MidKnight]

Lately, I've been seeing a lot more of this on the forums, and it irks me. Somebody will ask a question, and there will be a terse, two-word answer, often with very little actual information as to how to answer the question.

There's nothing wrong with simple answers in general, but answering questions that way makes the thread harder to comprehend and less useful for others.

For example: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=26276
Here, Karl asks something, and Smoth replies with, "We told you the solution."

Maybe Karl realized what you meant and solved his problem, and maybe he didn't. Either way, the thread is useless to me or anybody else coming upon it, because there's no information as to what the answer actually is. Smoth just said "we told you" and left it at that. (It's not just Smoth who does this, BTW. I'm just using this thread as an example. Sorry Smoth!).

What would be better: If Smoth quoted the answer, or linked to the thread with the answer, then the thread would make sense to others. Sure, it takes 15 seconds of extra effort, but it helps others with similar issues and satiates some curious souls.


TL;DR:
When you answer questions, include a link to the answer instead of saying "we already told you."

Thanks a lot, guys!

[smoth]

quoting, editing the quote for relevant parts copying that and pasting it in a new post is a pain in the ass on my IPHONE.

karl didn't want to use CEGs, which are the engine way of doing particles.

there was a long and annoying thread...
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 3&start=20

Where I sunk enough time. he simply made a double post several months later and with the same place he was at before

he seemed way too determined to get exactly what he wanted, as opposed to working with what we have.

it was an ass post and honestly I didn't feel like doing that same tango with him again to go and make a nice long post detailing all the crap FOR YOUR edification mid. After having to repeat something OVER and OVER and OVER...

I am not your or anyone else's public fucking servant. So don't like there are not enough details, fine, ask for more detail. If you actually are not going to do anything with it, I won't bother replying with said details... I am not here for your entertainment. Someone else might give more details though.

[MidKnight]

I'm not complaining because of your specific case, or because I'm amused by in-depth responses to repeated questions. Whatever the cause, that kind of answer reduces the forum's readability.

I own an iPhone as well. Apart from this pesky issue with multiparagraph posts and phpbb, typing on it isn't too hard. In fact, I'm writing this from my iPhone to prove that point.

That said, if you're pressed for time, then just a "you asked this before, search for your last thread" would be orders better.

[Forboding Angel]

Dude, Karl was just being an ass and a troll with that new thread. He already got his answer in ample supply.

[MidKnight]

As I said, it isn't about any particular individual case or person. It's in general.

Here. Have another example. This one is less egregious; jK mentioned what he was talking about two or three posts earlier. Still, if you got the thread from a link, or if you were to hit the "view latest post" button, then you'd be in for a little bit of confusion.

I'm not backing up Karl or anyone. I understand that these kinds of answers are usually given to people who don't pick things up the first time (or the fourteenth time). I'm just asking that post authors be a bit more specific, for the benefit of the rest of us.

[knorke]

From what I see, the CEG thread did not have a good solution, merely some workaround with fake units.

Also bitch, please I too own an iPhone, multiple iPads and I was the first in my town to get an iPod.
But I use the iPhone for what it is was made for, playing Farmville on the toilet and not to post emmanuel style like:

Is there some kind of general debug snippet people use for debugging arrays ?

Spring.Echo(string)

+ for concatenate but you can use , instead which will insulate from null errors

Treat it like cout>>

This is just output

for the loop do a for each in pairs to itterate the table there are many examples in lua
P.S since you don't know yet, most of the time I post from my phone so forgive the brief reply

Now will you excuse me, my iTunes download just finished and those horses won't feed themself!

[smoth]

I reply while I am waiting on something. It is time consuming to copy and paste. I can do it but find it annoying. Like yesterday, I was testing some sql server replication stuff with a timer on my server agent set to 60seconds which is why I would post while waiting. After a full day of that you tend to post while waiting on the damn thing.