BeenThereDoneThat is a common street expression (the punch line is "Bought the tee-shirt"). It refers to a rube showing off and an older slacker sighing that he or she has gone to that state of mind, done that performance, and grown jaded of the experience. Cf HaveThisPattern

[A 'rube' (US slang) is a country bumpkin, or uncouth, unsophisticated person.]

For example, to have BeenThereDoneThat is to know that BigDesignUpFront is ConsideredHarmful. Or to know that Java is crap for embedded hardware.

But BeenThereDoneThat is not an attempt to convince a WikiNewbie that Wiki describes the software development process. It is not chat or a letter (and Wiki does no such thing). It is an attempt to write a page that may be read by others at any time in the future.
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BeenThereDoneThat, said with a tone of resignation, is an admission of having made the same mistake yourself under similar circumstances.  That was the usage I intended in ZeroMeansNull. -- DavidFlater

''As with most forms of electronic communication, your intended tone of voice is lost. Often it is replaced with something the reader imagines, so the meaning of your remark now depends on the reader's state of mind when he reads it. -- MatthewAstley (stating the obvious in another way, in the hope it might be useful...)''
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The mindset behind the expression seems to be that, having taken the tour, snapped the pictures, and bought the souvenirs, your experience of a place is complete. Fortunately, when I travel, I tend to avoid tours, find myself too busy to take pictures (which I do regret later) and my souvenirs are usually books and newspapers.

''I HaveThisPattern, or a variant. When I go on my holidays, I generally just go somewhere, hang around for a bit, then come back. Oh, I might visit a local museum, say, as a way to plug into a part of the local culture, but mainly I just...hang around. Meet people. Experience life in this place. I do take photographs, but that's because my hobby is photography (I take plenty of photographs of my home town, for instance). This results in somewhat strained conversations when I come back. What did I do? I just hung around. What did I see? Just some stuff.''

When you state it like that, it seems very strange that ''your'' holiday should fail to meet up with ''other people's'' expectations!  I know exactly what you mean though ... how best to deal with it? (Apart from shrugging)
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This phrase is commonly used as an excuse for not even attempting to analyze the experience being related by another party. (See reference to BigDesignUpFront, above.) When someone wants to simply dismiss the whole thing without making any attempt to deal with it this tired, hackneyed phrase gets trotted out yet again. For instance, I love the way XPers just "know" that BigDesignUpFront is a bad thing. What total bullshit. Wiki is full of such assumptions; reader beware. Do your own filtering. -- MartySchrader
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CategoryIdiom