One Of My Favorite Things About The Internet

Oct 27, 2008 by Matt | Posted in General 2 Comments

Do you know what one of my favorite parts of the internet is?

It’s the community, and their willingness to help people out without anything in return. Sure, the web has it’s fair share of trolls and greedy corporate people, but overall you can just approach someone, say a blogger, ask a question, and get a straight answer.

Having trouble getting a PHP script or CSS effect to work? Visit a coding-oriented web forum and ask for advice. One of the many people there will most likely know what’s wrong and spot that typo on line twelve that you missed despite going over the code dozens of times.

Wondering what the easiest way to make a blog mobile accessible is? Just ask a blogger who has experience in that area. If you were to email me (there’s an easy form on my contact page), I’d write back in a day or two with a few recomendations, or refer you to an existing post of mine (or some other bloggers’) with the relevant information.

Is your computer’s hard disk failing? There are plenty of people online who can advise you on how to rescue your data before it’s too late.

Where else are people so willing to help and advise others?

  • http://stevenclark.com.au Steven Clark

    Ignoring the people in forums who continually say “read the manual” (a pet hate of mine) I totally agree. There’s an immense community of people willing to share their knowledge, which is partly why the web standards movement has progressed from a few talented people in isolation to a thriving community of developers. It used to be that someone would find the answer to something and we’d all have to spend a week reinventing the wheel. Nowdays there are tutorials for everything, even CSS bugs are insanely easy to track down and fix if you know what you’re looking for. If I can’t offer direct advise (cos sometimes they expect I’m smarter than what I really am) then I at least take them to someone who can help.

  • http://www.webmaster-source.com Matt

    “Ignoring the people in forums who continually say “read the manual” (a pet hate of mine) I totally agree.”

    I don’t say that. I find the page in the manual they need, and send them the link. :D Especially with things like PHP, where their description is generally good enough. I sometime include an example or code snippet to further illustrate, when I do that.

    “Nowdays there are tutorials for everything, even CSS bugs are insanely
    easy to track down and fix if you know what you’re looking for.”

    That’s why I generally Google around before asking anyone for help. I’d rather find the answer myself if I can, rather than bother someone else. I probably would only have half my web knowledge if it weren’t for internet tutorials.

    “If I can’t offer direct advise (cos sometimes they expect I’m smarter
    than what I really am) then I at least take them to someone who can
    help.”

    Exactly what I do as well. If I can’t provide a suitable answer, I often advise them to try one of the web help forums out there, and provide a link, and advice for posting their question.