Yes, but getting a spate of RTFA was a badge of honour. Also responding RTFA meant that you didn't get it either. To a flood of RTFA you got to be allowed to be quite pithy in response with outrageous indignation and generally still be onside.
My /. id (JSG) is ~18K but is only so large because I lurked for a few years before signing up. sigh
Even back then I have always used identifiable IDs on forums, those are my initials and here I use surname + initial and do so on everything internets these days.