I grow very very weary of the self-deprecation that happens on IRC and mailing list.

Example:

<morka_> i’m really dumb and need to set up password protected page, like with .htaccess and .htpasswd
<morka_> are there any tutorial for really dumb people like me?

ok, now what was accomplished by that? I suppose this person is trying to encourage people to help him/her, but what I find that this makes me want to avoid this person. By telling me that they are dumb, I end up thinking that I want to avoid helping them, because they are unlikely to do any of the work themselves, and I’ll end up doing it for them.

When I go into a new forum, whether it is IRC or a mailing list, I try to present myself as someone who needs help, but who has already done the requisite homework (FAQs, Google, documentation). I’m not dumb, and I suspect that morka_ isn’t dumb either. So I don’t tell people that I’m dumb. What good would that do?