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How much help do we give? 1

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sleipnir214

sleipnir214

Programmer
May 6, 2002
15,350
US
An ethical question that I have been pondering is: "What amount of help should we give in Tek-Tips or other similar sites?"

I have been a student of the "Give a man a fish....Teach a man to fish..." school of thought for a long time. But there seems to be a lot of posters in the programming questions fora who, in a well-meaning but shortsighted attempt to help, simply post source code which solves the problem. They may also be trying to garner stars, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I have been bothered by this for a while. If you don't explain what your code does, the questioner may or may not be able to make sense of what you have given him.

This also brings to mind the fact that at the beginning of June, a lot of questions posted were obviously school assignments. An example: this one from the c programming forum: thread205-85780

I know the Tek-Tips acceptible use policy is supposed to forbid this [BTW: can anyone tell me where to find that], but it still happens.

Any comments? ______________________________________________________________________
Don't say thanks. Just award stars.
______________________________________________________________________
 
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butchrecon - you can reference the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein
 
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Also, the American Heritage Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus are both available from
A site with more about the English language than you ever dared ask is
And if you find the need to get hold of enough words to bathe in them, you can access the mother of all English dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary, online by subscription at . I think individual subscriptions are "only" $550/year. ______________________________________________________________________
My God! It's full of stars!
______________________________________________________________________
 
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Culpa is Spanish(Latin) for "fault". Culpable (kul'pa-bel)adj. Deserving of blame or censure. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....." [morning]
 
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Koldark, I understand and feel the same way personally.

The core of my question is, "When asked a question in the fora, is our ethical duty to simply provide code that solves the problem, or is our ethical duty more like that of a teacher, to provide explanations that assist in greater understanding?"

I now know that if I answer one of your questions, you are really asking for the minimum necessary guidance to find the correct answer yourself. My ethical obligation to you will be clear, provided I remember this conversation should the time come I answer one of your questions.

I think that we can better serve our IT community by teaching others to solve problems for themselves than we can by solving the problems for them. ______________________________________________________________________
My God! It's full of stars!
______________________________________________________________________
 
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Our ethical duty is to give the minimum help to those who need minimum help, detail help to those who need more than minimal, and alternate suggestions to those who are digging their own grave from ignorance.

Having said that, it must also be tempered by the realization that there are people out there that want to attach a pipe to us for the express purpose of sucking us dry or to use our labor to save theirs or to avoid having to pay somebody else to do the labor.

And further modified by the ethical questions preceding in this thread. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
 
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Don't want to get too much into the ethics and culpability issues...

But I did want to say that when I post here with a question it's because I need help with something or am curious about something. I have found that different people point out diffent ways of solving problems and fixing things and I appreciate that. I mostly like that I can usually look at the responses to my posts and figure things out from there... it's like when you get stuck at a bump in the road or you get writer's block and just can't figure where to go to get the effect or procedure the way you want it, then someone mentions something and it clicks and poof! it comes to you...

I don't want people to just flat out give me answers.. and I never use sample code straight from a post, I like to play with it and figure it out first...

As far as whether we should be held responsible for what others do with our suggestions and code that we post... there's a whole thread that asks the question "Can we be sued?" that really gets into this too.

(just my $.02) BeckahC
[noevil]
 
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BeckahC, I'm actually are trying to steer completely clear of the concept of culpability. Culpability implies assignment of blame, which implies an external body doing so, which implies assignment after the fact.

I'm more interested in determining one's ethical responsibility, both in how to answer and what to answer. ______________________________________________________________________
My God! It's full of stars!
______________________________________________________________________
 
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This is a recent post in the VB thread:

Program Help(Storing in side on vb)
thread222-304896

Any thoughts about if or how you would respond to this thread.

(I am not interested in answers to the thread question --[post those to the thread if you're so inclined] -- just in you thoughts about if you would or would not respond and why)

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein
 
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Since participating in this thread, I've been reading questions in the VB forum with an especially suspicious eye. Now it seems that every third post concerns a potentially dangerous subject. That one does stand out though.
This thread has caused me to more closely examine my policy regarding this "helping a virus author" subject - well, in honesty, I didn't have a policy at all prior to this. I can't argue with the notion of responsibility for the information imparted. It seems, though that in deciding whether to answer or not, you've got to determine the degree of risk. We're not answering questions about A-Bombs or undetectable poisons. For the most part, the help we give or code we supply can be considered relatively benign. We've got to determine risk by examining the question and the user asking the question. This is where I tend to err on the side of trust. I still hold that it's inappropriate to jump to conclusions regarding the inquirer's intentions.
Now, I'll concede that such idealism needs to be tempered by some cold-world reality. If you look at the other threads started by DavidDude, he's been pursuing this and similar subjects in other forums. I'd probably avoid answering this one even if I was able. I believe someone asked him "why?". I think this is an appropriate response.
 
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I usually see what the person is asking and go from there. If they sound like they are just looking for code, I give them an answer NOT code. If they are just looking for examples that is what I give them. If they want us to debug their code, I give them suggestions on how to solve it.

These are just a few examples. Mike Wills
AS400 Programmer
[pc2]

Please, if you find my post useful, let me know. [thumbsup2]
 
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I would advice the guy to buy a book about advanced programming in VB, something with API's and sockets etc. At least he will discover that things are not that simple. If he wants to crash his pc, he does it assisted.
Reminds me when I deleted IO.sys long time ago, it forced me to read manuals and understand the norton commander.
Steven van Els
SAvanEls@cq-link.sr
 
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Yes the VB thread has been deleted.

After sleipner214's suspicion that it was a Trojan Horse was confirmed, there was no more "benefit of the doubt", so I red-flagged the thread, as did petermeachem
Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein
 
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I believe that was just poor jugment on the posters part. I dont think he realized the post would get pulled. or at least pulled before he got the answer he was looking for. James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.
 
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I would have thought the thread was a prank were it not for the similar threads DavidDude had started in other forums. He was being a little too candid.
 
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butchrecon, I'll bet a cop is just as willing to arrest a dumb crook as a smart one. ______________________________________________________________________
My God! It's full of stars!
______________________________________________________________________
 
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I guess I dont get it? James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.
 
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Well... looks like if you suspect that they might be trying to do bad things, you can red flag it and it will be removed... fast! Mike Wills
AS400 Programmer
[pc2]

Please, if you find my post useful, let me know. [thumbsup2]
 
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