Too much stress - need a time out

Captain_Throwback said:

Howdy folks.

I enjoy being able to help out around here, I really do. But I think it's time for me to take a step back. Being on here shouldn't be stressful; it should be fun. This is my hobby; it's supposed to be fun. But when I go through a lot of trouble to put information in my posts and try to explain things, only to have people ask questions that have been answered over and over again, it gets extremely frustrating. I understand not everyone has the same aptitude for this stuff, but anyone that decides to be here has chosen to learn more about their device. They want to get the most out of it. To do that, will require reading and learning. Searching. Reading more. I just want to encourage everyone that wants to learn to read. And if you don't want to learn - if you just want quick answers to quick problems - then you may be in the wrong place. I think there are other, more "noob-friendly" forums, but this place is where the information gets deep. So while you might not know how to do everything, or understand what all the terms mean, at least give it a shot if you're going to be here. This community is built by people that may have started out knowing nothing (like me), but after years of reading and learning, they find ways to contribute. I hope someday everyone can get to that point. I hope that I've helped some of you get there.

But I am daily inundated with PMs of questions answered in the forum. I am not a shortcut to prevent you from having to search. My time is valuable, just like everyone else's. Use the forum. That's what it's here for. It's how I learned.

I'll probably still pop in here and there, but I'm going to try to be around less. I just see a lot of arbitrary information being spoken, information incorrect and not fact-based, and it frustrates me. So, maybe once my frustration dies down, I'll be more inclined to contribute more, but right now, I think it's time for a break.

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That was perfect!

I like the demerit concept, but as for the devs inviting people to post, that might grow cumbersome as it might put more burden on them, but maybe for each thread you will have read only access to it, then if you want write access you'll have to request permission and maybe a mod will grant/deny you su access to the thread...but I do know it's growing tired of redundant questions, half of the mods or edits i don't do, but I still keep up with the progress in numerous threads, some of these people are just lazy and don't want to put forth the effort and try to find the answers themselves.

Just my opinion though...

Sent from my EVO using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

drumwizard said:

I like the demerit concept, but as for the devs inviting people to post, that might grow cumbersome as it might put more burden on them, but maybe for each thread you will have read only access to it, then if you want write access you'll have to request permission and maybe a mod will grant/deny you su access to the thread...but I do know it's growing tired of redundant questions, half of the mods or edits i don't do, but I still keep up with the progress in numerous threads, some of these people are just lazy and don't want to put forth the effort and try to find the answers themselves.

Just my opinion though...

Sent from my EVO using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

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I can see that going wrong pretty quickly, though. You can never predict who's going to ask the lazy questions vs. somebody who has a legitimate interest in testing or having trouble with their specific situation. Granting or denying access to a thread would be arbitrary and cumbersome. Or sometimes it's just an honest mistake. I have read every post of Cap's thread, the 5.5 thread, the RUU thread, the AOSP threads, basically everything dealing with the new 4.3 partition frontier, but I still got snapped at at least three times by Cap and Sin (I think) for asking what I thought were legitimate questions (among a number of other posts that were at least tolerated from me). I'm not blaming either of them or anybody else for that, but I do think it was a matter of perception about where my questions were coming from coupled with the growing stress of Cap in particular not choosing his battles as well as he probably wishes he had. You can tell his heart is in development from that alone. I think back to some other devs on other devices who would release a ROM and you'd see maybe a handful of posts from them in the rest of the thread even after a hundred pages.

I have a wife and 3 kids, I'm a teacher, I do extra work on the side almost every day, and I have several commitments outside of all of that. I'd love to know the ins and outs of decompiling a framework jar and tweaking it myself, but I don't have much time to learn all of that (or when I do, it takes a while because I'm really out of practice). I'm competent but self-trained on things like editing code and installing things in a Linux-based environment. I can learn it, but sometimes things that seem obvious to other devs are things I simply haven't learned yet.

Case in point: I was trying to replace my SystemUI.apk early on in the 4.3 stock ROM days. I couldn't get Sin's version to stick without getting repeated FC's on boot. I searched. Then I started a thread, got suggestions on checking permissions, I read up on other threads and other forums about how sometimes you have to copy it to /system then chmod it, then copy it to /app. Nothing worked. Finally, I realized I needed the sig-check-disabled services.jar in order to make this work. Now I know, and it seems obvious once I learned what that actually does. I'm sure somebody reading this will call me an idiot for not knowing that to begin with, but I simply never learned it, and Sin's post was literally "if you don't know what this is, don't use it, don't ask questions." It turns out I didn't know what it was, but I DID need it to accomplish what I wanted to do. A line in the post like "this is needed to make changes to system apps" would have saved me days of searching and frustration. Other people know what it was for, but I never learned it. Sin was well within his rights to offer the file with no explanation or guarantees, but I would suggest that that's also just begging for somebody to ask the questions you don't want to answer, maybe repeatedly. But if Sin or anybody else just wants to develop for himself and other devs, that's his choice. This will all trickle down into the next ROMs that somebody makes and bakes them into, and maybe that's the preferred path. I can't say that's right or wrong, just opinion.

Of course I realize that devs have lives outside of XDA as well, and I totally respect that. I appreciate their hard work, and I understand the frustration that comes along with it when it's taken for granted. I'm not arguing with that at all. Again, I'm a teacher. I know what it's like to explain something and then have the exact same question asked again. It happens to me every day. But when somebody is honestly trying to get their head around it for clarification, instead of just coming up after ignoring me the first time I said it, I understand that they just want to learn and are coming to me because I'm the natural person to go to. But if that lazy person came up and I just decided to stop talking to the rest of the class for the rest of the week, a lot of people doing their best would suffer for the mistakes of that one person.

I know I'm rambling, so I want to summarize: I appreciate the work of all of our devs. I understand the frustration they encounter. I also understand that XDA breeds condescension for some reason, and sometimes it brings out the worst in people who might otherwise be patient and helpful. As a person caught somewhere between clueless user and developer, I get caught in that crossfire sometimes. I'm defending myself, but I'm also defending the devs. If Cap needs a break because he was getting sucked in and feeling overwhelmed, I think that's the responsible decision. This is a forum based on modding our phones. If somebody gets to the point that their emotions are leaking into what should otherwise be objective discourse and problem solving, it's probably time to step back and gain some perspective. My opinion is that, if a question seems silly or not worth the effort to answer, just ignore it. If you know the answer, answer it, or post a link, or feel free to ignore it if you think the person should just keep searching. But if your natural response is to want to berate or belittle somebody for asking the question, then the question is probably not worth responding to in the first place. Save your energy for the good work you can do for the community. Do it because you love it. Don't feed the trolls, even the unintentional ones.

I appreciate the help you have personally helped me with Captain. I hope you can relieve all your stress.

Captain, I just wanted to say thanks. This is only my second post ever but I have been around for years. You have helped me more than you could ever know. Thank you.

Thank you Captain for all your work and support for us that you have helped learn all about this android craziness. Good Luck and hope to hear from you in the near future.

A shame to see you go Captain, you are one of the biggest assests around these parts. Enjoy your time off and thanks for all you've done.

I just like to say THANK YOU very much for all that you've help me with and the awesome work that you do :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::beer::beer::beer::beer::beer:

Sent from my EVO using xda premium

1st, Thank You Captain. You've been a tremendous help to me (and everyone here I'm sure) since I've joined XDA.
2nd, I've been guilty of this multiple times. However, I try to answer questions on my own first and only ask if necessary. I was taught at a very young age that handing things to people (including answers) is a very real form of abuse and eventually handicaps people. No one will ever learn anything if everything is handed to us.
I will say sometimes I just want to be part of a thread lol. Or use keep one alive.

Thanks again very much for a all your valuable contributions.

Sent from my ViperEVO