Does an email like this even deserve to be replied to?
I am personally more than willing to answer emails regarding what we do, and ScrewTurn Wiki in particular. It’s my job after all.
I always try to ignore grammar mistakes, typos, casing issues and misspelled names, but in this case the email is beyond my tolerance threshold.
Who the hell is your friend? Do I know him/her? Obviously, there’s no way for me to know that, because you haven’t mentioned his/her name.
What college? From his name, I can only assume the writer is from some middle-eastern Country or from India or Pakistan, I’m not even sure, but that’s it. He could be from Mars for all I know.
It is also blatantly clear that the guy didn’t even spend 30 seconds on our website, because it contains all the information he needs (assuming he knows what he’s talking about, which I seriously doubt).
I was seriously tempted to reply something along these lines:
Hello,
thank you very much for contacting us, we really appreciate it.Regarding your request, customizing screw turn wiki is about taking the engine of your car very near to its built-in RPM limit. Basically, you have to turn the screw usually marked with “RPM adjustment” rightwards, with the engine on, until you can hear it almost blowing up. Your results may vary, and you may end up damaging the engine, but it surely is worth for your final year project. Keep a fire extinguisher at hand, and just to be on the safe side don’t forget to wear protective clothing.
Instead I replied with this message:
Hi,
thank you for your email. From what you’ve written, however, it is totally clear that you don’t even know what you’re talking about, and haven’t spent a minute reading our website, as it contains all the information you need. In other words, I’m not going to give you the least bit of information because it’s obvious that you either don’t care about your final year project, or aren’t able to communicate with other people (or both). When you ask for help, don’t expect an answer if you can’t even write an email explaining what you’re looking for, adding all relevant context information, and most importantly showing that you’ve done your homework. Failing to do so, especially when you’re in school or university, will simply demonstrate that you are lazy and no one will help you.
Am I attracting bad karma? Probably. Am I being an asshole? Likely. Have I wasted more time writing that email than what I’d have wasted simply giving him the information he wanted? Surely.
But people have to learn. We have to crush such behaviors, otherwise they’ll spread like a disease and we’ll waste our lives babysitting these idiots. As if we don’t have enough things to do already.
</rant>