the mind boggles

[ratcreature]

One of the recent posts to the FCA-L list amused me greatly. Well, amused in that slightly cranky way you get amused at weird mailing list posts by people who are, or come across as clueless. It said something like "Hi, I just joined and want some advice on an AAR fanfic. Thanks." and contained a link. I mean, who would seriously expect that this kind of post leads to good replies? Not only have I (and I bet a good portion of the list) no idea what "AAR" is -- a series, movie, book, what? -- the poster also says nothing about what kind of "advice" they're looking for, nor anything about the story, except that it is "lengthy." And the poster expects what exactly? That you join, post a link without saying anything, and a review/beta committee, interested in whatever fandom that acronym stands for, will magically appear to help with your story?

Comments

[marag.livejournal.com]

In a similar vein, I frequently get messages at work that say "Please send me the brochure."

Um, we have approximately 30 brochures, which did you want?

Or, "Please send me information on this subject."

Uh, maybe you could be a little more specific? I'm not a mind reader! Tell me what page on our site you were on and I'll see what I can do.

Drives me insane. I have great difficulty responding politely, although I usually manage it once I curb my nastier impulses.

[ratcreature]

What gets to me is not only that the poster isn't specific, but that also I think it's not a great idea to make your first post to a group about asking others to do something for you -- unless it's specifically a help group, like for linux software or something, where it isn't unusual that you join, post your problem and hope there'll be people around who can help you fix things. And okay, in fandom people are willing to invest their time to beta and such, often even if they don't know someone, because everybody is happy when there's more new fic, but if you don't even explain what your fandom is, what genre you're writing and what kind of help you want, why would anyone care?

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i loved the person who took the time to actually read the first paragrph, was willing to comment and then asked...what's the fandom?

it took me a second to check that it was filed in the All American Reject category (heck, I warn people who wanna friend me that there be pop squeeing...i think an rpf warning might have been nice :-)

[ratcreature]

I never heard of All American Reject. It's a band?

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

yeah :-) one of those cute MTV ones which I only know due to my obsessive Total Request Live watching..canon, baby :-) For visuals, see here (http://www.theall-americanrejects.com/photos/index.asp) (I thought they were the ones where the lead singer had these most gorgeous eyes, but most of these bands merge in my mind into an amalgam of gruffy and way too young :-)

[ane.livejournal.com]

Since I was downloading a file last night I checked the link. Couldn't figure out what fandom it was supposed to be from the codes or summary so shrugged and went elsewhere. Archives should at least make it easy to see what the fandom is although I suppose most people would be going in through the front.

But yeah it was a really clueless way to join a list and try to get help. I'm liking my 'must pass a common sense quiz to join a list' idea more and more.