This is arguably off-topic or even preachy but maybe not?
Now and again I get an ah-ha moment and realize how key reading and listening are to learning.
This read attempts to explain why Because Reading is Fundamental
The above I found after reading about Discourse read time 
Funny to read about “reading” but it comes around all the time here. Probably the best line of the fist link in your post was:
“The number of times you’ve posted in a given topic is not a leaderboard; it’s a record of failing to communicate.”
To this end the rest of the linked articles appear to only re-enforce the point.
However, there was a suggestion in the first article about having to take a sort of quiz before you are allowed to respond to a post. Believe it or not… I am actually part of another forum that uses this very tactic (and is it ever annoying). It is a forum related to a GPL3 opensource POS system. They occasionally post the ridiculous things that people blurt out before ever taking the time to answer the quiz questions. IT is funny and sad all at the same time.
Now that you have pointed me to the first article, I can see where they probably got the idea for their format. 
BKM
Hi good to hear from you BKM,
What matters and constantly amazes me is that, thanks to Rushabh et al’s enduring stamina and coaching, we share this support platform to connect learn and grow.
And not to overlook that unless folks pitch in, nada happens and this ‘better together’ deal is off and we all go on our merry way.
Of course communication is neither obvious nor easy, especially since IT frustration is normal and can boil over. It’s about listening and knowing what to ask.
What a joy to visit Mumbai and join in at the 2018 conference, I could not have had a more fun time and welcome.
With the floods and hurricanes in the Carolinas this summer I hope you have fared more or less ok BKM!
cheers
JC
LOL, that was a trying time here. We didn’t lose much here in the way of business assets except precious time. On the other hand, many of the entities we work with lost a great deal more. So while we count our blessings for being substantially spared from total devastation, we have found ourselves working hard to help our partners and other innocents that were not so lucky. We are even trying to help some small businesses rebuild their IT infrastructure using ERPNext on our servers for free until they can get back into their seasonal uptick in sales and realize some level of recovery. It was much of the coastal area that took it the hardest and those small businesses are almost entirely family owned and the most vulnerable. Hopefully we can do some good there.
If the new Partnership Program that Frappe is going to launch this year looks like the right kind of direction, then we will be sure to be in some of the first groups to enter the training phase. While I would find a trip to Mumbai very worthwhile and rewarding, I have others in my organization that just fear international travel completely and refuse to even get a passport. I think over sensationalized news reporting these days have simple folks way to upset. So It may just be a few of us to go and have to bring that training home to the others.
Cheers! and Happy New Year John
BKM
Thanks BKM Happy New Year to you too I am enthused by all that awaits on the road ahead.
“The number of times you’ve posted in a given topic is not a leaderboard; it’s a record of failing to communicate.”
Possibly so but it all depends - ERPNext operates planet wide with many uninformed unqualified users.
For me personally one nit and struggle is my support aim or goal - to help the other end to find the answer for themselves, or to simply give them what they seek - do you give out fish or help teach folks how to fish?
Parents and teachers correctly say to coach is best. But that ideal depends on the case, a spouse, partner or employer may strongly disagree! Domestic life, academia and business each have their contracts and models of understanding.
When I respond often I may not be fully informed - the answer is fuzzy so I am learning too or am exercising what I know.
The other end may not expect or accept this, but seeks just a simple answer. Ignorant users who demand the answer may feel played or shortchanged, but caveat emptor with free advice you get what you pay for
In almost any other format except this forum, I would “teach someone to fish”. However, this ERP project has grown so fast and with such broad scope that documentation is woefully behind the times and even the features that are added each point release cycle dont ever really get explained.
So… when I have already spent hours or days (sometimes weeks) to finally figure out how something is supposed to work here and how it really works, I find myself “giving them fish.” When those events come up here on the forum, I think of it (and I hope it is true) as my contribution to possibly someone else that is eventually going to properly document a feature/work-around/process/or anomaly. I know if I had to document something, I would be searching the forum for additional help. So, I think I just convince myself that someone else (other than the asking party) may also put the information to good use one day.
I guess this very question finally hit home for me one day last week. I know that you were part of probably the very first “Step by Step” tutorial I ever did on this forum related to getting past the headache of spinning up your first VPS server with ERPNext. I still get “likes” from that thread all the time. Last week I did a cursory past through it just to see and I counted about 40 “likes” to my posts there and even more for others that also added to the conversation. Heck, that information is even outdated and people still find it helpful enough to click the like button.
So, when I reflect on the question about feeding the people or teaching them to fish, I cannot always agree that teaching them to fish is the right response. I know over the years I have participated in many open source projects and found that I could never find my way through some of them due to the lack of documentation and not understanding the creators thought processes. I was originally that way with ERPNext but I kept relentlessly asking questions and experimenting to figure things out. Some people may not be as blessed as I have been to have a wide range of experience in opensource projects. They only come to the project out of desperation because they really need a way to get their business moving in the right direction but have been burned by commercial software and have little or no funds left to try again. Those people would love to have the time and flexibility to “learn to fish” but for may this may be their last gasp. ERP software kind of fits into that realm and if I know something that can get a person past an undocumented (or poorly understood) process, then I cannot turn my back on that. It makes me wonder sometimes how other people can be cruel to those folks in their posts and what exactly they have to say in their prayers at the end of the day to ask forgiveness.
So, yeah… I prefer to teach people to fish, but there are some places (like here) where that is not always what works for my heart and conscience and I will do my level best to explain it in the easiest terms possible because, I have been there before.
Sorry… didn’t mean to get so deep, but every now and then John, you ask the damnedest of questions and I have to go all in. 
I guess that means I will be doing a lot more Step by Step stuff in the near future.
BKM
Hahaha… You couldn’t be more right. Even the first “step by step” post I created here was done right at the end of an excruciating learning process to get over my first hard hurdle and claim a simple victory. To that end, some of the information in that post was inaccurate and may even cause trouble down the road, but I had to put it out there so someone else could get that same little victory feeling.
So, yeah… you get what you pay for, but here it is almost always worth more than the cost of admission. 
BKM