Should i completely Butt out ?
I heartily second what everyone else has said, i.e., that you should
jump in feet first and help out as much as you feel comfortable. I
would add a few bits of advice to the mix:
1. if you can provide documentation for your answer, provide a link
to a website, indicate the Access help file topic or the book you're
drawing your answer from. If you've done that and don't really
understand the answers given, say so, and ask others if they can
provide an explanation of those answers.
2. if you've done some research of your own but have found only an
incomplete answer to the question, particularly when no one else has
found an answer, describe your research and why you believe the
answer is incomplete. An incomplete answer often points someone in
the right direction and ends up being just as useful as a complete
one.
3. make sure you've actually understood the question before you
answer, and if there's any doubt, say "I'm not entirely sure I'm
interpreting your question right, but..." This is a mistake a too
often make myself, and I've been programming in Access pretty much
as my principle occupation since 1996 -- I jump in before I've
completely absorbed what is being asked, and end up embarassing
myself.
4. don't hesitate to ask for further clarification instead of
"answering" the question. Very often, people don't get answers
because their questions aren't sufficiently well-formed. And it's
often the case that when questioners encounter a problem for the
first time they don't know what to ask about, so requests for
clarification are often as helpful in reaching a successful
conclusion as a post that provides a full-fledged solution to the
problem.
5. even when others have provided answers, you may think of a
different solution, so don't stay out of the thread just because
answers have already been provided -- as a novice you may have
better, more up-to-date answers reflecting your education in the
most recent versions of Access that are better than those given by
old hands who often neglect to learn the new ways and keep giving
out old answers (ones that work, but are still not the only or the
simplest solution -- David Fenton raises hand here!).
6. you can also contribute value to a discussion by asking for
clarification of others' answers. If you read an answer to a
question and you don't fully understand the solution, ask for some
clarification. By doing so, you may be helping the original
questioner as much as the answer you're responding to.
7. useful phrases: "I could be wrong on this...", "I'm not sure if
this is applicable in this situation, but what about...", "I tried
to find an answer for this and looked in X and Y and Z. Is there a
better place to look?", "I think the answer is A, but these other
folks say B." These are all phrases that I think I should use more
often, and are appropriate for use by responders at all levels of
skill and experience.
8. try to keep track of answers from others that you like, and then
model your own responses on those. It's not always just about
content, but style can make a big difference. If you take a look at
the responses by posters whose names you remember and whose answers
you find understandable and helpful, you might find a model on how
you, yourself, might become just as valuable a contributor.
9. don't be surprised if you start a lot more followups than you
actually end up posting. I very often start an answer and while
nailing down my answer, discover that I'm wrong about the solution.
Likewise, I have a much higher proportion of followups than of
original questions not because I don't have a lot of questions, but
because often the mere act of formulating the question causes me to
discover the solution. This can happen when answering questions,
too, in the opposite direction! I often read a question and think
"Of course the solution is Z! It's so simple!" and after writing the
air code that demonstrates that my answer is right, I plug it into
Access and discover I'M WRONG! Sometimes I post anyway, because
explaining why a plausible-sounding answer doesn't work is often as
valuable as the answer that does, *if* you consider the goal of the
newsgroups not to be solving problems but learning in general.
That brings my to my last point: think of these newsgroups not as a
place where people post questions and people answer them, but as a
place where topics of interest are introduced and then discussion
ensues. You can help further those kinds of discussions by asking
more questions just as much as anyone posting an "answer" could.
The goal is not to answer the question so much as for everybody
involved to learn something new. The perspective of novice Access
users often leads us oldsters to learn something new. I could get
along fine doing my daily programming without participating in the
newsgroups, but the participation keeps me sharp and constantly
learning, and that is invaluable to me. It's why I spend so much
time at it, and, I suspect, why so many of the other regular
contributors do so as well. In short, I feel like I get as much as I
give in writing my answers.
You, too, even a self-described Access novice, may find that to be
the case as well.
