YM, if you are - as your monicker suggests - a parent then I know what I am about to explain will hit home -and perhaps you'll see where my recent replies are coming from...but even if you are not a parent, I am sure you'll get what I am saying - so bear with me for a moment.
I am a parent; that, plus I have just completed 12 years of coaching high school level basketball and baseball and I am conviced that the best "gift" I was ever able to pass on to my children or to students was the gift of discovery. I am asked a lot of questions and I find myself giving longer answers sometimes that just the answer sought after...
In simple terms, it goes back to the example I gave in an earlier post about a child asking: "How do you spell such-and-such a word?" As perhaps you know, the easiest answer you can give would be the correct spelling of the word - but IMO and as a parent, you would be failing at your duty if you did.
No, the answer is either: "Well how would you think it is spelled", or "Here a dictionary; lets look it up..."
In the latter case, you pass on to the child a gift of discovery, a gift that lasts well after we have left the room. Because now the child reasons a bit, or goes to a resource where he not only finds the one word he wants to spell, but thousands of others too. Now he has tools.
That is what many of us here on this site hope to do...to activate the flow of reasoning that we hope will expand into other projects and other spheres. It's just as easy for any one of us to give you his version of the answer...but for what? How many times do we see the same people come back a few weekls later with the same question, or the same type of question in another project?
What's more, one hopes to give this gift of discovery and have that message received and understood. To give the gift only to have the same child come back next week with the same question is frustrating at first, but does say that we have to try harder...
I am afraid that is what that other poster, ponch37300, is missing...this poster has a habit of posting questions to evoke replies and suggestions that he rarely follows. For example, he has been faux-finishing his kitchen cabinets for over a month now, had had recommendations from other pros here - but ends up taking the advice from a Sherwin Williams paint store clerk then blasts her because her advice wasn't to his liking...
That's the 'child' I referrred to above, coming back asking again: "How do you spell such-and-such a word?" - then screaming because he gets handed a dictionary.
In this case, he took issue with my answer, saying it would have been better for everyone if I had just given him the answer. But not by my way of thinking.
By now, I've grown a pretty thick skin and I can take the barbs. What saddens me most is that more and more people will ignore his questions.
This is where I am coming from; hope it makes sense!:wink: