Please don't eat me.

[bpb9]

Hello SeqAnswers community! Very glad to have found this forum. I apologize in advance for asking what to some might be obvious questions, but having recently made the switch from bench to desktop, I anticipate having a lot of those! Maybe with your collective insight and expertise that elusive PhD will no longer elude me! Cheers, B

[westerman]

Hi. When you ask questions -- and I hope you do -- please make sure that you have done your homework first. I.e., read the previous forum posts. I suspect that we all love new and interesting problems and questions yet dislike people who just post without doing their footwork first.

[pbluescript]

Hi. When you ask questions -- and I hope you do -- please make sure that you have done your homework first. I.e., read the previous forum posts. I suspect that we all love new and interesting problems and questions yet dislike people who just post without doing their footwork first.

I wish there was some way to filter posts based on this advice. There are many posts I don't even respond to just because I'd rather not do someone's searches for them.

[pmiguel]

Yeah, but there is little "expert knowledge" in a web search. I don't mind so much answering questions that I could answer using a web search. I supposedly have years of training and can weigh available information to quickly find salient info.

I mind posts where the poster did not even bother to clearly specify their question -- provide enough information that it is possible to give a good answer.

--
Phillip

[Joann]

I wish there was some way to filter posts based on this advice. There are many posts I don't even respond to just because I'd rather not do someone's searches for them.

Also in the case of student posts, I think it is very important not to interfere at all with the very valuable learning process that goes along with the searching. That's why I am in favor of those in the forum who want questions with more detail as to the scope of the problem--this helps to determine whether a quick technical pointer is really in order.

And I suggest an abbreviation like "SES" = "someone else's search" as a response/cue for impatient seekers.

[bpb9]

Thanks!

Thanks everyone. I will definitely scour the web and program documentation and attempt things on my own before posting!