Talk:RTFM

I propose a new term to be used: "LIUOW" Look It Up On Wikipedia

Could we use a new page for SFTW? --CalPaterson 10:24, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

RTFM - Request Tracker Knowledge Base

maybe think about putting reference to the knowledge base application would be appropriate.

http://www.bestpractical.com/rtfm/

The Redirect from "Google is your friend"

I landed here due to the redirect. I was quite surprised to find said redirect.

Does anyone (besides myself) feel that "Google is your friend" isn't necssaraily an insult (or meant as one)?

Personally, I myself use it every so often.

Why? Because in order to answer the person's question I, in fact, did a Google search.

My answer to their question begins with "Google is your friend :)" (hyperlinked to the URL of the Google search I did in the case of web forums), followed by a link (or links) to what I found through the search.

The link(s) of course is/are what I feel to be good answers to the person's question.

"Google is your friend", with no other useful information is indeed an insult. But also including what one found through one's "friend" is not.

Google is your friend needs it's own article.--angrykeyboarder (a/k/a:Scott) 04:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Move

Shouldn't this be in Wiktionary? And if I move it there, is there a way to make an interwiki redirect? Uncle Ed 19:56, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The criticism section makes it encyclopedic. Also you would have to add all of the related terms as well... - Ravedave 00:56, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Not a new term

The article makes it sound as if this is an "internet term". I have been a professional programmer since 1978 and I probably first heard this phrase in 1978 or 1979, back when the internet was the ARPANET, and very few people had access to it, or even heard of it.--Rogerd 23:10, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

"RTFM is an initialism for the statement "Read The Fucking Manual". This instruction is usually given in response to a question that can be answered easily by reading relevant documentation, and suggests that the inquirer may be wasting people's time." - Doesn't say anything about the internet. "Related Terms" mentions the internet, but not RTFM. I am sure the term was probably around even before the internet. If you can find documentation on when the term first appeared please add it to the article - Ravedave 00:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

The use of the word "hackers"

Does this mean "hacker" in the traditional sense? That is, internet criminals? Or simply technophiles in general? The article is confusing only in that sense.

However, familiar with RTFM, I simply find the rest of it utterly humourous :P Kareeser|^Talk! 02:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

You are confused about the traditional sense, as a "hacker" meant someone who was so good with computers that a problem could be fixed. Ronabop 11:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes. But there is something very flawed about this aspect of the article; it mixes in concepts like "hackers", "open source" and "Unix" for no obvious reason. RFTM has to do with mixed-experience-level communities of computer users in general (except there has to be documentation available for the phrase to make sense). JöG 22:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The original term was as used here, with the term for computer criminals crackers — the confusion courtesy mass media. There is no alternative word for hacker in this context, nor should there be. This section notes a cited opinion that using RTFM toward a hacker in larval stage is a good thing. The use of 'hacker' is entirely appropriate here.

Your objection denies the use of the acronym in the cited context. Since you are apparently not part of that culture, how would you know?

Removal of spurious references, —if and only if they are spurious— I won't object to. In fact, as elsewhere mentioned, I also think that the restriction to internet forum (with the link only mentioning the family of bad reinventions of USENET) right on top of the article should be removed as spurious.

Referring people to The Fine Manual is something that happens everywhere. The unix community has had a long tradition of high-quality reference manuals (manpages) and if you have them you might as well use them. The open source community often, but not always, follows suit, for the simple reason that people have better things to do than to explain individual others just how to use the software. Both may need their own sections to keep them out of the introduction, but their mention is not by definition inappropriate. 85.178.89.61 22:15, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Elitism

I believe I was using the word elitism within its intended definition. Take the first sentence of Elitism as a technical definition. "Elitism is a belief or attitude that an elite — a selected group of persons whose personal abilities, specialized training or other attributes place them at the top of any field (see below) — are the people whose views on a matter are to be taken most seriously"

People who use the term RTFM, ie, hackers or aspiring hackers, believe that their views on how to get help on topics, ie. extensive personal reading, and are hence being elitist. Even the common connotation of elitism fits the bill here. The people that know most about the system refuse to help people who don't know as much. I don't believe that it is a waste of time to personally answer questions for people, even if they are copy and pastes from the relevant FAQ's. Cut and paste still gets people interested. Ansell 23:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Usually all they need is to be pointed in the right direction. They're lost and don't even know what keywords to search for, the program has no documentation, they don't know what program to use or what manual to read, they don't know where the manual is, etc.

The "counter-criticism" section is absurd and poorly written. I intend to put this through a rewrite, but I might not get around to it. I'll add some articles to the External links at least. I notice that some of this talks about "hacking" and other parts are about OSS. That might be key to fixing the "counter-criticism" section. In "hacking" (whatever that is), elitism is the goal, but in OSS it's not?

Should add some stuff about usability engineering theory and user interfaces that don't require documentation, too. — Omegatron 20:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Elitism is not necessarily a goal in hacking, you can aspire to be more competent in an area without even comparing yourself to others. Bergsten 10:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Ohh...

I alway thought this meant "Remove The Fucking Monitor". No wonder it never made since...

Anyways, may I suggest that the "Relate Terms" section be moved down near the "See Also" section? I would do it myself, but I thought I would ask to see if anyone else agreed with me. --Lewk_of_Serthic

• No-one disagreed. Therefore, Sir Lewk, your wish is my imperative. Minmi 12:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions?

There obviously needs to be a reference to the Kama Sutra in this Article. Tar7arus 18:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

contrib talk 02:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

lalalala lalalala elmos world lalalala llalaala elmos world wlmo loves his gold fish his crayons tooooo thats elmos wooorrrrlllld!!!!

"elmo loves dorthy" "bloop blopp" "wake up dorthy" "*sigh*" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.229.17.116 (talk) 02:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Sentence in first paragraph

What's the purpose of the sentence "although new users may not know how to properly access the manual" in the end of the first paragraph? For me, it is not informative and can be safely removed.

It sounds as if someone were trying to justify one question that got a RTFM response.

Samuelrivas 06:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the first paragraph should define the subject of the article in a succinct way. While I realise some object to the usage of term, the sentence do not belong in the first paragraph. I am therefore removing it. Bergsten 10:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Nice. It looks better now. Samuelrivas 16:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

RTFQ

WTF, merge it. ;-) Lou Sander 20:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC) (And IIRC, there's some good, but not-too-well-sourced, material on origins and usage in the RTFQ article. IMHO, a good combined article would include it.)

Edited:

The page was created a few days ago by me, a few days ago, I added a definitoon that was edited and adapted from another source and meant to edit it further today. I noticed that it has been completely edited, and I feel that I should re-edit it. I will be editing it over the course of a few days, so it may take a while, but it will eventually be an encyclopedic definition. Thanks for your time. BTW, Remove The Fucking Monitor? LMAO.

Well...

They are both part of the "RTF*" family in my opinion, so making a new topic would suffice, IMO. :P

Needs an etymology section...

Speaking of which, it is interesting to note that ftp://rtfm.mit.edu.au was the primary site for UseNet FAQ archive.[1] --DavidHOzAu 04:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Merger

• Oppose. These are two different terms. {Slash-|-Talk} 06:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  So we should create a separate article for every term in the RTFM#Related_terms section? — Omegatron 07:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

"F*cking" vs "Fine"

When I looked it up, the article said it stood for "Read The Fine Manual" which I've never heard before. Assuming whoever said it meant that just didn't like to swear I've put it to "F*cking". "Fine" is even in the list of alternate words to use instead of the F-word, so that didn't make much sense.
Porty 13:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Origins (factual error?)

I take exception to the assertion that this term was recently coined, or is an internet phenomenon. My father was a Marine Corps officer, and told me many years ago (at least back in the 1980s) that RTFM was military slang for Read The Field Manual, referring to the (excessively long) documentation that accompanies every piece of military hardware and/or action. Embarassingly, I have no sourcing for this other than the word of my (now deceased) father, but given the timeframe during which I was told (and, at least to me, the reliability of my source) I don't know that this article is factually correct. Suggestions? /Blaxthos 17:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

intelligent in-context help

Although, of course, there is the argument that users don't read manuals because designers, knowing that users don't read them, don't bother to make them very useful. Regardless of original cause, this problem will be mitigated as the 'intelligent in context help' paradigm comes into play.

I call bullshit and flamebait. 'Bob the dog' and 'Clippy'. Need I say more?

If so, I'll say that this is an assumption that certainly is not universally agreed to. Least of all the people that tell other people to RTFM. Therefore, I make it an unbalanced and opinionated prediction. 85.178.89.61 22:24, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

MIT's RFTM collection of FAQs

The original collection of FAQ documents at MIT at ftp://rtfm.mit.edu should be mentioned in the usage section since it's been a major usage of the term, and contributes to the term's meaning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.191.217.11 (talk) 22:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Related terms

The related terms section needs to get cleaned up. As it stands it is an unsourced list of acronyms, related or unrelated to the article. Including about 10 different variations of RTFM ("Read The Fucking Manual Asshole", really?) and this gem "Use The Fucking Wikipedia". I'm sure we can find sources to cite for the well known acronyms (RTFA, FTA, FGI, TFA) and that is all that should really be on the page. I also think the bottom matter (newspaper, etc) should be placed in a new section (e.g "Other Uses") and properly cited. BJ^Talk 10:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Digital used to have amazing manuals

In the mid 80's I worked with Vax/VMS systems by Digital. There were dozens of volumes of loose leaf binder manuals. They were amazing. Well organized, comprehensive, and relatively easy for a motivated newb. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.216.251.92 (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Why is RTFM censored?

128.180.213.194 (talk) 01:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

"an FAQ"

I apologise, I was not aware that this is improper English. Do you know somewhere I can read up the correct (if apparently absurd) use of the English language in an easy-to-read way? I've been meaning to do that for a while. —[semicolons]— 20:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)