Phil Agre has this great post, How to Help Somone Use a Computer. (Though it's from 1996, so it's more of an article than a post, but we'll just call it a post.) Anyway, here's some of the gems you'll find there:

* You've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner.
* If it's not obvious to them, it's not obvious.
* Don't take the keyboard. Let them do all the typing, even if it's slower that way, and even if you have to point them to every key they need to type. That's the only way they're going to learn from the interaction.
* Find out what they're really trying to do. Is there another way to go about it?
* Take a long-term view. Who do users in this community get help from? If you focus on building that person's skills, the skills will diffuse to everyone else.
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