Hey People,
I have one big complain around the whole Drupal community culture.
I am a senior frontend developer and still in learning process of Drupal. I do not have much exprience in drupal either. I love drupal it is such great CMS. However, I am not happy with the whole culture behind it.
let's face it. Drupal's forum is not the best out there, like we see Joomla. In takes many days to get a proper answer. So many developer prefer to use IRC instead, such as myself.
I usually ask for other developer opnions about the specifc modules ans so on, since i dont have much expreince and dont have to try all the modules one by one. Is all about sharing knowledge and experince right?
ok, here is the thing, everytime this is what i get: "Goolge it!" , "Have ever bothered to google", "I am not going to answer your question, google it", and sometimes they use very offensive words/slangs .... It is allways full of sarcasm, hate, patronising... WHY??? it feels like a Third World Dictatorship country.
yes the question is WHY? isn't an open community? why some people (not everyone, there loads of lovely people out there) think they OWN the IRC or the FOrums and think that novice people are waisting their time.
It is not compulsary to answer other people question nor to offend them. IS NOT OK.
I truley appreciate the hard work behind the drupal, however i believe we should also practice on the culture more.
Thanks,
Comments
Yeah, that stuff bothers me
Yeah, that stuff bothers me too. But by no means is it exclusive to this site, pretty much any forum out there where people can ask questions gets comments like that. For example, I live in Japan, and on Japan forums, people often come and ask a question about Japan, and you will always get some tool replying 'google it'. Google is handy, but sometimes it's nice just to get a discussion going on the topic. I don't understand why these people even bother replying. If you don't want to answer it, don't answer it.
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sorry to hear that
I had not noticed rudeness.
I spend a lot of time answering questions, not from developers on the whole but newbies, or site builders who are not great at server setup or simple debugging. The same questions come up again and again, and one feels like saying 'if you google the answer, you will find that I have already typed out the same answer to the same question multiple times.' How often should those of who answer newbie questions have to type out the simple point that for GUI module install to work, /tmp has to be writable, before it occurs to a questioner that googling the question will save forum contributors 20 minutes just retyping the same point in different words? Most of the 'newbies' are grateful, which is nice, but one or two respond with a level of arrogance and nastiness I have never encountered from a real Drupal person.
It is true that in Wordpress for example you are going to find a lot of 'community members' who are more interested social aspects of the Web, and the Drupal community is largely made of hard core, and very impressive programmers. Maybe these people have a different, sometimes less socially polished, way of communicating with colleagues? Or do you find that intellectually brilliant developers in other software communities tend to have more time and patience for social polish and considerateness than Drupalers do?
Maybe it was a one-off interaction which upset you? With online communication it is easy to give unintended offence, especially for people who have slightly off sense of humour, as a few developers have!
Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors
How often should those of who
Why as many or few as they want. No one requires that a person be here replying to posts, and if you don't want to answer it, then there is no reason you should.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
sure
It is not required, I do it because I want to, and I want people to get into Drupal (which in the two years I have been using it has IMO not got easier to use, on balance, but that is another large subject). But it is understandable if I also encourage new users to get into the habit of googling for answers, which is something OP finds can come across as rude.
Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors
'Google it' just comes across
'Google it' just comes across as abrasive. It's not helpful at all, and sometimes people will already have googled it and not been able to understand what they found, or maybe they didn't google the right terms.
Sometimes I'll do a google query with the right terms and link to that, or even link to a specific page that I've found from googling, just to help out. Or I'll ignore it altogether if it's something I think is pretty easy to find out there already.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
[...] everytime this is what
The funny thing is Google itself has no evidence of shv_rk ever being told to Google anything on d.o. I'm unsure as to where should I go to search next. :)
On a more general note, although I've seen "google it" answers on this forum, I come across them probably two or three times a year, which is much less often than on other forums. Hence, I strongly believe the problem has been blown out of proportion.
On an even more general note, search often IS an answer – just that the OP needs a little help in formulating the right query. In this case, I find replying with a link to search results entirely appropriate. I don't know how on earth that could be offensive.
I mostly get offensive
I mostly get offensive replies on IRC, also about these:"Goolge it!" , "Have ever bothered to google", "I am not going to answer your question, google it"
they are not the EXACT wording, also as I said it is mostly on IRC.
I am still standing on my point that, I truley appreacite all work and I know that a same answering question over and over again could be exhausting, but we all should have a bit of understanding and be a bit more patient.
we need to understand that many of the users do not speak english properly or they are not as advanced or smart/fast as you.
ALso, there are some sort of stuff that you can't/ hardly find on froums, as I mentioned in my first froum, about general experience of a certain module or something. I usually ask experienced people about best practice of doing something and like to chat about it, question it. Ofcourse if I have a question like how to print CCK field I would never ask, i google it, is faster.
even though, let say you are right, and a person is being lazy or whatever, one has no right to be offensive. If you don't feel like replying just don't.
another point is: when we are talking we should always be conscious that some people may find it offensive, so be more polite. it is multiculture envorinment!
This was something that has been bothering me for a long time, i just wanted to point out not to fight.
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First, while it can definitely be that someone has googled or otherwise tried to answer their own question unsuccessfully before posting, more often than not, it's painfully obvious they haven't even bothered to try-- if someone can't be bothered to help themselves, why should anyone else?
Second, the support forums are not for socializing or otherwise engaging the community, there are other places for that. The support forums are for obtaining support.
And it's a simple matter of mathematics-- there are far more people in the forums that complain about not getting any answers than those that complain about being told when there is an existing answer ('google' is not the only way to point someone to an existing answer).
Those of us that actually bother to try and help out others are FAR FAR FAR FAR outnumbered by those asking for help. If we have to waste time answering the same question over and over again, that's less answers for those questions that have no answer yet. period. it's a zero sum equation.
There are VERY LIMITED resources supplying answers in the forums-- so are you really saying you'd prefer they answer the same questions over and over again rather then provide new answers?
And no, it's not acceptable to answer "why not do both"-- not with the current numbers.
are you really saying you'd
I still say, if it's a question you don't want to answer, don't answer it. If someone doesn't get an answer, they are going to do one of two things - search for it, or give up. It's not a zero sum game, because those giving help can choose to help wherever they want - it's only a zero sum game if they are helping on threads they don't want to, and I don't understand why they would do that.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
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I'm not one that generally just says 'google it' -- i usually provide the actual search that yields results because often it can be a matter of english or jargon that affects the success of a search. So yes, if someone is going to reply by just saying 'google it' then I agree-- why bother.
But no, I don't agree that's it's better to just not respond-- then the posts will often be bumped with 'no one?'. So rather than let someone flounder around wondering why no one is replying, i prefer to educate the user (as opposed to simply handing them an answer that teaches them nothing and does nothing to help them help themselves in the future).
you help out A LOT jay-- but mostly in the DEVELOPMENT forum where people are far more willing to do for themselves than in the other forums because, in general, they're already working on code. It's quite a different experience in the other forums when more often than not people are unwilling to expend even the most minimal effort to help themselves.
we'll just have to agree to disagree here ;-)
It's not full disagreement.
It's not full disagreement. When someone keeps bumping something like that, I can get a little annoyed myself as well. Also, I agree with sometimes providing a link to the search results, particularly if there are a whole list of them.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
bigger problem
There is a bigger problem in that Drupal is tough to learn, even with improvements to D7 (which has a new crop of problems owing to lagging dev on contrib modules). And yet it is being pushed as an alternative to Wordpress even by Dries for many use cases. So Drupal is attracting people who with a bit of help could easily work with Drupal core or easily work with Wordpress. They know enough to do a little html or css, and they start dropping in major contrib modules like Views, or some of the modules which are still seriously buggy in beta, and it turns into a nightmare of both build complexity and bugs.
This type of user needs a lot of help. And yet they are not a good fit with hard core Drupal community. I would like the core developers to stand back and take a much more global view of where the software is going, and how it is being 'sold' and who it is for. If it is for Wordpress refugees who want a bit more, Drupal has to work easily with modules like Views, Panels, Organic Groups and Skinr: Core is rarely used in a vacuum. The reason I answer newbie questions is that I was one of those people, and I stuck around to learn site building, Drupal-oriented server setup, debugging, some php and mysql and Drupal api. But we should say honestly that Drupal core + major modules are going to cause low skilled website builders problems, the way things are at present, If Drupal chooses to attract that type of user, in Drupal's current state (taking into account the very major modules which can be seen as are semi-core), those new users are sure to behave a bit helpless (from the point of view of a developer).
Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors
The internet has created lazy
The internet has created lazy borg drones who don't want to have real conversation. So instead, they just tell you to google it and use fancy acronyms. Search has it's drawbacks, it can take you hours upon hours to search for something. If someone who knew the answer would simply tell you it would take less time.
Some developers think the whole world revolves around them and that everyone should be like them. They often sound like they own the internet, are they in for a rude awakening. The whole point of a forum is communication, it's rude to tell someone to google it. When someone tells me this I tell them to shove it up their *#%#. It's also rude to use the term "troll" anytime someone says something that isn't agreed with.
I would like forums to remove, yes remove all old posts so when searching we don't see thousands of pages. They will never do this because they are more worried about search engine hits than being user friendly.
They could arrange forums/boards so there are specific areas to get answers to specific things. Again, not about being user friendly it's about being overly complicated.
I've seen some boards like this and it's a joy to navigate.
The Drupal forum/website is boring and the new layout is worst then the old one. I use to come here almost everyday but now it's usually once every few weeks or once every month simply because I don't like the layout or the new navigation. Many others are in the same boat as me.
I call these non-user-friendly people "GOOGLEBOTS"
@Jay
You keep saying things like "No one requires that a person be here replying to posts, and if you don't want to answer it, then there is no reason you should." But that goes against one of the OP's points that this forum doesn't get a satisfactory answer in a timely manner. if everyone just didn't answer repeat questions of point the poster to Google, there would just be a lot of people saying, "No one answers questions in the Drupal forums. i keep asking and no one comes." They're not just going to search and be done with it and even if they do search, they will still complain that no one came in and told them the answer.
So it's a lose lose situation unless people want to continuously answer the same questions all the time.
With that said, there ARE some rude developers and there are some rude users. Some developers have a serious attitude and feel like they're God's gift to the Drupal community. There are also users who feel like every developer needs to answer their questions 10 secs after they post it, and in many cases they expect developers to do all the work on their sites. There are also plenty of developers and users who are perfectly reasonable and polite. Just the other day I had a module maintainer apologizing profusely because I posted an issue in his module's queue and he didn't answer it for five days. Like I told him, five days is NOT unreasonable and he shouldn't apologize at all. I have had issues go for a long time without answering and I've even had some issues deleted because the maintainer didn't want to address the issue. That is unacceptable but it's few and far between.
[SIDENOTE] i also hate the term "troll." No one on the internet uses it correctly anymore and people just say it when you're opinion doesn't jive with their worldview. If you say the Drupal community sucks, that doesn't make you a troll. It means you have an opinion not shared by everyone. If the OP posted this discussion in the sole hope of rousing extreme negative emotions from the community, then sure, it would be trollish. Stating a differing opinion is not trollish if that opinion is meant to inspire discussion. Alas, people like to call you a troll because they have no other recourse and have no debate skills whatsoever.
Trolls post pictures of dead people on their Facebook pages. Trolls hang out in religious forums. Etc.
I'm not saying people
I'm not saying people shouldn't reply, rather if you are going to be snarky with your reply, then why bother at all. There are a lot of threads I personally ignore. I don't believe about coding tables for layout, so anything that has tables, I just skip - though to be fair I don't see tables so much on Drupal, it's usually other programming forums, but this is just an example.
For people who want an answer and want it right now, and they don't get it, that's just too bad. That's what google is for :D
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
I don't feel like I've had
I don't feel like I've had this experience. I've been doing Drupal sites since at least the time Drupal 4.5 came out, so I've been around awhile. Maybe I just don't notice it anymore or something. The only negative thing that really strikes me is the Elephant in the Room you're not supposed to talk about, namely the disconnect between Core's ever growing complexity to perform the relatively simple tasks needed for most web sites and Contrib's inability to keep up with (and document) these changes from version to version. But that's a tangent I guess.
_
I can see a small sliver of truth in what you say, Codeblind. However the way I see is that a great majority of developers are not writers. There is a concern (in all technical fields and not just Drupal) that techies cannot seem to grasp that the layman don't understand as much jargon as they do and when writing documentation, they pack it full of jargon and assumption that everyone reading knows what the developers know.
Also, developers don't always like to write. Possibly that stems from not being good at writing (like mentioned above) or just from the fact that they did it already and now the API changes and they have to do it all over again.
I do
Being a Drupal user for just about 2 years, I do talk about it. I was puzzled that no one was listening. The core team should decide where D8 is going and tell everyone including Contrib maintainers well in advance. If the problem is worse in D8 than D7 (it probably will be) Drupal as a general purpose CMS will break. As a development framework it will remain strong.
On this board I help out 'newbies' in areas I can. In real life I tell that type of person to get Wordpress. I know the heartache Drupal causes non-technical users when so many many modules which worked for D6 are buggy (in some cases probably beyond hope) in D7, but are still needed / widely used. Dries expressed some thoughts about this in State of Drupal, but he does not seem to be around much to guide the project any more.
Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors
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I also tell people to use Wordpress when they tell me they want a blog. When they want anything other than a blog, or a blog+anything else, I tell them to use Drupal.
I don't know how the Drupal core maintainers can be involved and responsible for policing all the contrib module documentation or module upgrades. I certainly don't expect them to. That is up to the maintainers and if they don't do it or can't be nudged to do it, there really is no recourse.
Drupal documentation of core is pretty good. The upgrades are available long before they're released and some people are on it and some aren't. There are modules already ported to D8. One problem is that many/most maintainers aren't actually building modules for the community and so they're the ones upgrading modules when clients are using the next major Drupal branch. So they get on late, after a major release has been out, and are slow to learn and document everything as it applies to their module.
for me best CMS ever
I tried joomla, word press and drupal
the fastest and over all liked was drupal
then comes wordpress
drupal has many mods and capabilities to be transformed to different kind of sites other than just CMS
however this script is not famous enough and i think there is too little marketing for it