larrycohen28
Getting familiar with the group...
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- Jul 23, 2009
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I respectfully disagree, at least partially. While there's always value in RTFM, and while there's definitely change in society toward instant gratification, the reason a community like this works is because people are free to ask stupid questions without people jumping all over them for not RTFM or asking a FAQ. The quickest way to kill a community is to have a few people constantly shoot down, criticize, or belittle people who take the big step from being a lurker (and there are hundreds, if not thousands of people, who visit here without ever registering or posting).
As for the specific example, I believe with the Genesis plus technology option the manuals total more than 500 pages, many of which represent options not present on most vehicles and many of which are filled with safety warnings. Perhaps if you were operating a nuclear power plant, being intimately familiar with every page and warning would be appropriate, but an automobile is basically just that.
I consider myself fairly well-schooled on this car. Yet there are things that I've learned from this site, either by asking or by reading others' questions and answers, that are in the manual, in some Hyundai bulletin, or have been asked before and could have been searched for.
The thing about searching the electronic versions manuals is that they are not readily available to the public, and unless you knew where they are, knew that the answer was in there, and knew how to search using the PDF reader software, it's probably not reasonable to expect that you would either do that or known that you should have done that before posting.
Finally, another part of the community is that folks tend to want to help each other and share information. The more passionate people are about something, the more they want to evangelize it. I think it's a good thing that someone feels comfortable (or lazy, perhaps) asking an RTFM question and someone feels good about replying with the answer.
Even when it is RTFM, there are ways to convey that without being so overt. "Hey, the answer is <this>, which can be found on page <x> in <y>, which is also available <here> if you'd like a searchable copy."
Sorry also about the diatribe.![]()
Right on Dataguy! Having formerly been a high school teacher, I can attest to the fact that not everyone learns the same way. Some people can read the owner's manual once and memorize everything that it says. Others like me are very grateful for this forum because I don't absorb information like that and I need to have people to share ideas, problems and solutions with. The engineer in me thinks that if someone on this forum has spent time and effort finding the solution to a problem in the owners manual, it would be inefficient for another member to spend that time and effort when he/she could simply ask a question here. I personally am happy to share any info I have been able to absorb that someone else has not.
Ok, enough on that since we are way off topic here.