Teaching

What is learning?
Learning is the process of increasing your level a skill in exchange for experience points (XP). The XP cost of learning a level in a skill depends on how many levels of the skill you have. This cost is discounted if you learn from another person with a teaching bonus higher than your existing skill bonus, instead of learning from yourself. Learning, either from yourself or other players, is one of two ways to advance a skill after advancing it as far as you can in your guild. The other is through TaskMaster.
What is teaching?
Teaching is the process of helping another person increase their level in a skill in exchange for some XP. The XP received seems to be related to the teacher's teaching bonus. Note that you don't get any XP for teaching yourself. Teaching may at times use all the teacher's available other.points GP.
What is the teaching bonus?
The teaching bonus is the average of two skill bonuses of the teacher, their bonus in the skill being taught, and their bonus in the other.teaching.* skill for the skill tree of the skill being taught. For example, to learn scrying the teachers' teaching bonus would be the average of their other.teaching.magic and magic.methods.physical.scrying skills.
Why is learning from someone else better than teaching yourself?
Teaching and being taught have benefits to both the teacher and the student. The teacher receives a portion of the XP that the student spends on teaching, this seems to vary between 2% and 10% of the XP spent. The student spends less XP per skill level, possibly saving as much as 10% of the XP cost of learning the skill from themself, so learning from a teacher with a teaching bonus in excess of twice your skill bonus may mean you get as many as 10% extra levels for your xp.
What is "autoteach"?
Autoteach is an option that a teacher may enable that allows potential students to learn without the teacher needing to issue commands in respect of each student. It is useful for teachers who idle in areas where others may wish to learn from them.
How do I "autoteach" from another player?
First of all, you use the teach command to request instruction in a skill:
> teach me ma.sp.sp from sined
Sined offers to teach you 1 level of magic.spells.special for 12345 xp.
Use "learn" to learn the skill.
Then you use the learn command to learn the skill.
> learn ma.sp.sp from sined
Sined starts to teach you 1 level of magic.spells.special for 12345 xp.
Saving...
You finish learning magic.spells.special from Sined.
If they don't have "autoteach" on?
First, use the teach command to determine how many levels you can teach yourself with the available xp (see self-teaching below). Then ask the player to teach you the skill, telling them how many levels you can self teach. Note that the number of levels you can self teach is not "total xp" / "cost of a level", it is the maximum number of levels you can teach yourself with the teach command.
How do I teach myself?
First of all, you use the teach command to request instruction in a skill:
> teach ot.tea.ma to me
You can teach yourself 1 level of other.teaching.magic for 182279 xp.
Use "learn" to learn the skill.
You offer to teach yourself 1 level of other.teaching.magic for 182279 xp.
Then you use the learn command to learn the skill.
> learn ot.tea.ma from me
You start to teach yourself 1 level in other.teaching.magic for 182279 xp.
Saving...
You finish teaching yourself 1 level of other.teaching.magic.
One level at a time, or all at once?
When learning from yourself, it appears to be marginally cheaper to learn one level of a skill at a time. However, when learning from another player, it seems to make no difference, as shown by some recent tests.
Are there other issues?
There are a couple of etiquette issues attached to teaching.