Thread by @HunterHammersen, Should we do that thing? That thing where I try to talk [...]

Should we do that thing? That thing where I try to talk with some level of care and precision about something that's probably way too big to talk about on twitter?

I think we should. It's always a fun distraction.

Let's talk about a tricky kind of question.

A (long) thread:

I think of them as the 'tell me everything!' questions. Some examples...

"I want to design, can you just run down real quick for me where you get your ideas, how you handle your knitting, how you take your photos, and how you market your work? Thanks so much in advance!"

"I'm getting really into socks, can you please briefly tell me what construction you like best and why, how to handle sizing, which yarns are best and why, which heels you like and why, what cast on you like and why, and anything else I need to know? Love your work, thanks!"

"I don't really understand swatching or blocking. Could you walk me through it for a second? Why should I do it? What happens if I don't? How do I do it in every conceivable circumstance? What do I do if it doesn't work? What can I do instead? Thanks for your help!"

So what do all of these have in common?

Answering any of them would be hours, maybe days of work.

Assembling the information, structuring it in a logical way, and presenting it in an approachable fashion (likely with photos or other materials) is a massive project.

This is literally the sort of thing that teachers get paid to build entire classes around.

Like each sub-question in that list up there could pretty much be it's own class.

Go ask a teacher how much prep time goes into every hour of class time.

Just because you say 'real quick' or 'briefly' or 'quick survey' in your question doesn't mean it's actually quick to answer.

Saying thanks or that you like someone's work does not mean they have to do what you ask.

Neither of those things make this sort of request reasonable.

And it's tricky. Because sometimes someone is just excited and might not realize what they're asking for!

If I get that vibe, I'll often respond with a variation on 'Wow, those are really big questions! But UsefulLink or HandyGuide could be a good place to start. Good luck!'

Because I've been doing this for ages. I've written So Much Stuff on the blog over the years. If I've written on it and can point you to it, great! Or if I happen to know of something someone else has written, also great.

That's lovely. Totally a good result. Everyone wins.

But every now and then, someone replies with 'but that doesn't really tell me Everything I Want To Know, tell me more!' and just...no.

And I haaaaaaaaate saying no. It makes me feel awful. Even when the request is unreasonable.

Don't get me wrong. I'll do it. But I hate it.

And sure, one option is to say 'My consulting rates are $BigNumber an hour, I anticipate this would be x hours of work, shall we schedule something?'

But that's snarky and mean and I don't want to do that.

Instead, I want to encourage people to think about their questions.

Small, specific questions, the sort you can answer with a sentence or two, are (generally) fine:

"Do you have a social media scheduler you like?"

"Any charting software you recommend?"

"Do you like your mailing list host?"

All perfectly lovely! I don't mind them at all.

Questions that would require massive answers are less cool:

"How do you take your photos?"

"How do I promote my business?"

"What's the best way to use instagram?"

Giving a substantive answer to any of those would take hours. Questions like that make me feel awful.

They leave me feeling like either I have to spend massive amounts of time and energy answering someone else's question on someone else's schedule, or I have to just bluntly say 'I don't have time to answer that question.'

Both of those are lousy.

I mean don't get me wrong, I'll pick the no every time. I'll even mostly manage to put enough 'sorry!' and 'just too much to go into!' and 'lots of good resources online!' and 'there are some great classes!' and other friendly qualifiers in there to make it seem polite.

But I will be annoyed that someone thought this was a reasonable question in the first place. I will be even more annoyed that they didn't realize after the first that what they were asking for was just too much. And I will spend way too much mental energy composing my response.

So, I want to encourage everyone to do a quick double check before you ask questions. If what you're asking for could be the subject matter of several days of classes, take a second to ask yourself if that's a reasonable request for you to make of the person you're asking it of.

If you can summarize your question as 'that thing you've spent years becoming an expert on? can you boil that down to like a one page summary for me? and make sure it's comprehensive but also not overwhelming?' then it's probably a bad question.

Try to avoid it.

Standard caveats go here.

None of this applies to pattern support questions, those are almost always of the quick and easy answer variety.

This usually doesn't apply to tool recommendation questions, those are almost always also quick and easy to answer.

'Do you know of a resource on xyz' is also generally fine. If I do, I'll usually point you to it. If I don't, it's not nearly as hard to say 'nope, sorry, I'm not aware of one!' than to say 'I'm not going to spend the next 3 days doing that for you.'

And as always, this isn't said to make anyone feel bad.

If you've done this, it's ok. It's easy to do, especially if you're excited about something new.

I think most folks who Know Stuff In Public get some of these questions and develop techniques for dealing with them.

But I'd like to maybe encourage folks to keep in mind what they're asking for (just because your question is quick to ask doesn't mean it's quick to answer). Because there is seriously no good response to those questions. And getting them is always a bummer.

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