To whoever fear their question will be criticized, ask anyway.
Yes, dumb question, smart question, vague question that you can't figure out how to formulate because you don't know enough to know what you don't know. Ask away! This thread should not discourage anyone from asking. I ask dumb questions all the time (in fact I have started multiple threads over the years, solely to organize and ask all my dumb questions).
But newbie or not, we do need to learn presearch our questions, ask effective questions, be responsive to guidance, and take an active role in our education/problem solving.
But you should know
Those bothered need not reply, please.
Many of "those bothered" (venting in this thread), are the ones I know to be among the
most helpful, most patient, most engaged people when it comes to helping new people on this forum. The ones spending hours of their days helping others. Not just old dogs grumbling (though i can see how it would certainly come off that way, and does have an element of that). The OP for instance has helped many a clueless beginner (including me
) and contributed
over 50 resources to the forum, many of which are explicitly beginners resources.
Its easy to not be bothered when you aren't encountering the same preventable, foreseeable problems or stumbling blocks time after time. But its easy to get burnt out when many of the people asking for your help have clearly done little to no research, and aren't motivated to do the tedious bits. Wanting a little hand holding or reassurance or help with the technical bits from more experienced members is totally fine and natural and what this forum exists for in large part, but you've got to want to help yourself and want to learn and to do the tedious bits.
I don't think this thread was meant to criticize people for asking questions even dumb questions, it was just venting about the frequency of people rushing to buy things before they understand what they are buying
without asking questions/doing research up front leading to unnecessary constraints/. Asking the "dumb questions" or better yet searching/researching
first, and just approaching a project in a deliberate manner requires no solar knowledge, and is not too big of an ask.
But yeah, I do agree, this post should just be read as venting, it shouldn't discourage anyone from asking (after searching) anything, even the "i bought xyz components how do i make them work together" questions. But hopefully it will encourage some to be a bit more deliberate before getting to that point.
