&gt; <i>One of the most important skills anyone is going to learn in a technical position is finding answers to questions you have that have already been answered. The next important skill they have to learn is doing a little bit of your own research in understanding your problem.</i><p>Exactly. And as the article was trying to explain, this is a <i>skill</i> which needs to be learned like any other kinds of skill.<p>Shouting RTFM means you demand that skill from the poster or even insult them for not having it - what you&#x27;re not doing is giving the poster any help or encouragement in developing the skill.<p>A better solution would be to link them to the relevant previous discussion or documentation page or telling them <i>what</i> to google. This way you can actually bring the poster forward without causing duplicate discussions.