<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.10.3"> </HEAD> <BODY> On Tue, 2007-30-01 at 00:21 -0500, Scott Kitterman wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> >Being friendly and helpful is hard work? </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> No. Answering a question and then getting nitpicked for not having answered in the way that someone thought I should have is really annoying. </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> I should point out that I did say friendly and helpful. That conjunction is key to understanding. At some point, to reduce your own frustrations in life, you're going to have to develop a sense of appropriate wording. While "what do you want!" and "how can I help you?" are identical in effective meaning, a business that uses the first on customers will lose a lot of customers to one that uses the second. Since you appear to have some difficulty with this notion, let's go over the initial question and your response and see if we can't together find a better way to do it. <TT>>> Ubuntu is based on debain but which one do I choose: 1 or 2?</TT> <TT>> Neither. Ubuntu is not guaranteed to be binary compatible with Debian (or any </TT> <TT>> version).</TT> So far so good. We have a clear answer and an explanation for it. Both very good. <TT>> If you need to do this, get the source package and build it </TT> <TT>> yourself.</TT> Ah! Here is where the trouble lies. In general, in English, it is considered brusque and offensive to use the imperative voice when answering a question. It sounds a little less like polite, friendly, helpful advice and a little more like an order. Wording things in this manner tends to get people upset. This leads to people making these "annoying" and "nitpicking" responses to you which raises your blood pressure and generally gets you upset to the point you don't want to talk anymore. Now a better way to respond might be: <BLOCKQUOTE> <TT>> Neither is a good choice because Ubuntu and Debian aren't necessarily</TT> <TT>> binary compatible with each other. You may want to find an Ubuntu-specific</TT> <TT>> package (have you considered checking the universe repository?) or, if that</TT> <TT>> doesn't work, you may want to instead build it from source directly to</TT> <TT>> avoid any problems."</TT> </BLOCKQUOTE> See the difference in tone? That tone is the key. What I said above is pretty much the same as what you said (although I added the hint of looking at the universe repository gratuitously because the OP may be reading this and this is as much for his benefit as it is for yours) yet what you said comes across as brusque, rude and aggressive whereas what I said comes across as helpful and courteous. The key to understanding this is to understand basic human nature. People generally don't like being told to do things. They like being offered choices. Hence wording that is in the vein of "go do this" tends to get people's backs up while wording that's in the vein of "you might want to do this" tends to get them listening. As a further example of this, consider another way that I could have responded to you (and this is an exaggerated example intended for humourous illustration only!): "ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER, CAN YOU SPEAK IT?!" What I have put in this message is not all that different from the excessive example cited above. I'm basically chastening you for poor communication skills in English, the medium of this mailing list. Yet, by using polite wording and offering choices and explanations I take the sting off of what would otherwise be a very raw and very flame-inducing response to you. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> If you want a thoroughly researched response that includes not only the answer to the question you asked, but also to the questions you should have asked, then hire me as a consultant. </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> You'll find that most consultants who get regularly hired have decent communication skills. Again it's human nature. "I can hire this guy that sounds like a neanderthal hunting for mammoths or I can hire this guy that can speak my language." Technical skills are vastly overrated by those who hold them. Social skills are king in business. <TABLE CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="0" WIDTH="100%"> <TR> <TD> -- Michael T. Richter Email: ttmrichter@gmail.com, mtr1966@hotpop.com MSN: ttmrichter@hotmail.com, mtr1966@hotmail.com; YIM: michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber: mtr1966@jabber.cn "[Blacks] ... are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind." --Thomas Jefferson </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY> </HTML>