Return to Question

I know this question has been raised before at policy on "how do I draw this?" questions. I know a lot of us are annoyed by these questions. But I'm not so sure, as in the linked discussion, that these sorts of questions add nothing to the site. I believe they could add something if we had an appropriate tag, such as [how-to-draw], or we came up with better titles that might help others doing a search for such things. A tag additionally could then be a place to first direct people to look to see possibly similar figures that they wish to duplicate.

I feel that the learning curve for either TikZ or PSTricks is steep enough that people can generally be quite lost about how to do even the simplest things. I discovered PSTricks many years ago and got to be quite comfortable with it. I began using TikZ about the time I joined this site. Though there are similarities, much is different. For example, I feel, TikZ requires a much deeper understanding of LaTeX's macro expansion process than PSTricks requires. And, for those people who are new to LaTeX and haven't used any of the graphical packages, I think they can feel quite overwhelmed and lost. Some of the answers/comments to TikZ questions are just rather off-putting, like comments that read "it's in the manual". Yes, that may be true, but the manuals are very long or broken across many different documents; finding what you want to do can be extremely challenging.

I've been thinking about this policy of ours for a while. And it seems that increasingly we're becoming less friendly toward people who may just be totally out to sea about how to even start something. Recently I was downvoted for answering such a question---and, I am not complaining about that; I understand the reason---but, that's prompted me to actually go ahead and post this.

Some of us actually enjoy trying to answer such how to draw questions: sometimes just because it challenges our own understanding of TikZ/PSTricks; other times just because it's fun to create the image. New people are always going to come to our site and post these sorts of annoying questions no matter how much we try to discourage it. I generally only answer such question for people with low rep. counts, which I take to be a sign that they may also be novice LaTeX (and family) users.

I'm actually much more bothered by the repeated downvotes for the OP. I feel it casts us in a negative light when so much of what we do it supportive. I don't think it necessary that we view the people posting these questions as vampires (unless it's the same individually repeatedly posting time and time again the same sort of "do this for me" sort of question).

Could we come up with a policy that would make it more forgiving for OPs who may not even know where to start with TikZ/PSTricks? Could we please find a way not to be offended by these questions? After all, no one is saying, "Hey you there, you must answer my post!". They're just reaching out hoping that someone will answer them.

I know this question has been raised before at policy on "how do I draw this?" questions. I know a lot of us are annoyed by these questions. But I'm not so sure, as in the linked discussion, that these sorts of questions add nothing to the site. I believe they could add something if we had an appropriate tag, such as [how-to-draw], or we came up with better titles that might help others doing a search for such things. A tag additionally could then be a place to first direct people to look to see possibly similar figures that they wish to duplicate.

I feel that the learning curve for either TikZ or PSTricks is steep enough that people can generally be quite lost about how to do even the simplest things. I discovered PSTricks many years ago and got to be quite comfortable with it. I began using TikZ about the time I joined this site. Though there are similarities, much is different. For example, I feel, TikZ requires a much deeper understanding of LaTeX's macro expansion process than PSTricks requires. And, for those people who are new to LaTeX and haven't used any of the graphical packages, I think they can feel quite overwhelmed and lost. Some of the answers/comments to TikZ questions are just rather off-putting, like comments that read "it's in the manual". Yes, that may be true, but the manuals are very long or broken across many different documents; finding what you want to do can be extremely challenging.

I've been thinking about this policy of ours for a while. And it seems that increasingly we're becoming less friendly toward people who may just be totally out to sea about how to even start something. Recently I was downvoted for answering such a question---and, I am not complaining about that; I understand the reason---but, that's prompted me to actually go ahead and post this.

Some of us actually enjoy trying to answer such how to draw questions: sometimes just because it challenges our own understanding of TikZ/PSTricks; other times just because it's fun to create the image. New people are always going to come to our site and post these sorts of annoying questions no matter how much we try to discourage it. I generally only answer such question for people with low rep. counts, which I take to be a sign that they may also be novice LaTeX (and family) users.

I'm actually much more bothered by the repeated downvotes for the OP. I feel it casts us in a negative light when so much of what we do it supportive. I don't think it necessary that we view the people posting these questions as vampires (unless it's the same individually repeatedly posting time and time again the same sort of "do this for me" sort of question).

Could we come up with a policy that would make it more forgiving for OPs who may not even know where to start with TikZ/PSTricks? Could we please find a way not to be offended by these questions? After all, no one is saying, "Hey you there, you must answer my post!". They're just reaching out hoping that someone will answer them.

I know this question has been raised before at policy on "how do I draw this?" questions. I know a lot of us are annoyed by these questions. But I'm not so sure, as in the linked discussion, that these sorts of questions add nothing to the site. I believe they could add something if we had an appropriate tag, such as [how-to-draw], or we came up with better titles that might help others doing a search for such things. A tag additionally could then be a place to first direct people to look to see possibly similar figures that they wish to duplicate.

I feel that the learning curve for either TikZ or PSTricks is steep enough that people can generally be quite lost about how to do even the simplest things. I discovered PSTricks many years ago and got to be quite comfortable with it. I began using TikZ about the time I joined this site. Though there are similarities, much is different. For example, I feel, TikZ requires a much deeper understanding of LaTeX's macro expansion process than PSTricks requires. And, for those people who are new to LaTeX and haven't used any of the graphical packages, I think they can feel quite overwhelmed and lost. Some of the answers/comments to TikZ questions are just rather off-putting, like comments that read "it's in the manual". Yes, that may be true, but the manuals are very long or broken across many different documents; finding what you want to do can be extremely challenging.

I've been thinking about this policy of ours for a while. And it seems that increasingly we're becoming less friendly toward people who may just be totally out to sea about how to even start something. Recently I was downvoted for answering such a question---and, I am not complaining about that; I understand the reason---but, that's prompted me to actually go ahead and post this.

Some of us actually enjoy trying to answer such how to draw questions: sometimes just because it challenges our own understanding of TikZ/PSTricks; other times just because it's fun to create the image. New people are always going to come to our site and post these sorts of annoying questions no matter how much we try to discourage it. I generally only answer such question for people with low rep. counts, which I take to be a sign that they may also be novice LaTeX (and family) users.

I'm actually much more bothered by the repeated downvotes for the OP. I feel it casts us in a negative light when so much of what we do it supportive. I don't think it necessary that we view the people posting these questions as vampires (unless it's the same individually repeatedly posting time and time again the same sort of "do this for me" sort of question).

Could we come up with a policy that would make it more forgiving for OPs who may not even know where to start with TikZ/PSTricks? Could we please find a way not to be offended by these questions? After all, no one is saying, "Hey you there, you must answer my post!". They're just reaching out hoping that someone will answer them.

I know this question has been raised before at policy on "how do I draw this?" questions. I know a lot of us are annoyed by these questions. But I'm not so sure, as in the linked discussion, that these sorts of questions add nothing to the site. I believe they could add something if we had an appropriate tag, such as [how-to-draw], or we came up with better titles that might help others doing a search for such things. A tag additionally could then be a place to first direct people to look to see possibly similar figures that they wish to duplicate.

I feel that the learning curve for either TikZ or PSTricks is steep enough that people can generally be quite lost about how to do even the simplest things. I discovered PSTricks many years ago and got to be quite comfortable with it. I began using TikZ about the time I joined this site. Though there are similarities, much is different. For example, I feel, TikZ requires a much deeper understanding of LaTeX's macro expansion process than PSTricks requires. And, for those people who are new to LaTeX and haven't used any of the graphical packages, I think they can feel quite overwhelmed and lost. Some of the answers/comments to TikZ questions are just rather off-putting, like comments that read "it's in the manual". Yes, that may be true, but the manuals are very long or broken across many different documents; finding what you want to do can be extremely challenging.

I've been thinking about this policy of ours for a while. And it seems that increasingly we're becoming less friendly toward people who may just be totally out to sea about how to even start something. Recently I was downvoted for answering such a question---and, I am not complaining about that; I understand the reason---but, that's prompted me to actually go ahead and post this.

Some of us actually enjoy trying to answer such how to draw questions: sometimes just because it challenges our own understanding of TikZ/PSTricks; other times just because it's fun to create the image. New people are always going to come to our site and post these sorts of annoying questions no matter how much we try to discourage it. I generally only answer such question for people with low rep. counts, which I take to be a sign that they may also be novice LaTeX (and family) users.

I'm actually much more bothered by the repeated downvotes for the OP. I feel it casts us in a negative light when so much of what we do it supportive. I don't think it necessary that we view the people posting these questions as vampires (unless it's the same individually repeatedly posting time and time again the same sort of "do this for me" sort of question).

Could we come up with a policy that would make it more forgiving for OPs who may not even know where to start with TikZ/PSTricks? Could we please find a way not to be offended by these questions? After all, no one is saying, "Hey you there, you must answer my post!". They're just reaching out hoping that someone will answer them.