Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 23:25:16 -0400 From: Malartre <malartre@aei.ca> To: Greg Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How to get best results from FreeBSD-questions Message-ID: <35DE3A1C.EE4B3AFA@aei.ca> References: <199808220002.RAA17015@hub.freebsd.org>
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Greg Lehey wrote: > > How to get the best results from FreeBSD questions. > =================================================== > > Last update 23 February 1998 > > This is a regular posting to the FreeBSD questions mailing list. If > you got it in answer to a message you sent, it means that the sender > thinks that at least one of the following things was wrong with your > message: > > - You left out a subject line, or the subject line was not appropriate. > - You formatted it in such a way that it was difficult to read. > - You asked more than one unrelated question in one message. > - You sent out a message with an incorrect date, time or time zone. > - You sent out the same message more than once. > - You sent an 'unsubscribe' message to FreeBSD-questions. > > If you have done any of these things, there is a good chance that you > will get more than one copy of this message from different people. > Read on, and your next message will be more successful. > > This document is also available on the web at > http://www.lemis.com/questions.html. > > ===================================================================== > > Contents: > > I: Introduction > II: How to unsubscribe from FreeBSD-questions > III: Should I ask -questions or -hackers? > IV: How to submit a question to FreeBSD-questions > V: How to answer a question to FreeBSD-questions > > I: Introduction > =============== > > This is a regular posting aimed to help both those seeking advice from > FreeBSD-questions (the "newcomers"), and also those who answer the > questions (the "hackers"). > > Note that the term "hacker" has nothing to do with break- ing > into other people's computers. The correct term for the latter > activity is "cracker", but the popular press hasn't found out > yet. The FreeBSD hackers disapprove strongly of cracking > security, and have nothing to do with it. > > In the past, there has been some friction which stems from the > different viewpoints of the two groups. The newcomers accused the > hackers of being arrogant, stuck-up, and unhelpful, while the hackers > accused the newcomers of being stupid, unable to read plain English, > and expecting everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. Of > course, there's an element of truth in both these claims, but for the > most part these viewpoints come from a sense of frustration. > > In this document, I'd like to do something to relieve this frustration > and help everybody get better results from FreeBSD-questions. In the > following section, I recommend how to submit a question; after that, > we'll look at how to answer one. > > II: How to unsubscribe from FreeBSD-questions > ============================================== > > When you subscribed to FreeBSD-questions, you got a welcome message > from Majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG. In this message, amongst other things, it > told you how to unsubscribe. Here's a typical message: > > Welcome to the freebsd-questions mailing list! > > If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list, > you can send mail to "Majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG" with the following command > in the body of your email message: > > unsubscribe freebsd-questions Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.de> > > Here's the general information for the list you've > subscribed to, in case you don't already have it: > > FREEBSD-QUESTIONS User questions > This is the mailing list for questions about FreeBSD. You should not > send "how to" questions to the technical lists unless you consider the > question to be pretty technical. > > Normally, unsubscribing is even simpler than the message suggests: you > don't need to specify your mail ID unless it is different from the one > which you specified when you subscribed. > > If Majordomo replies and tells you (incorrectly) that you're not on > the list, this may mean one of two things: > > 1. You have changed your mail ID since you subscribed. That's where > keeping the original message from majordomo comes in handy. For > example, the sample message above shows my mail ID as > grog@lemis.de. Since then, I have changed it to > grog@lemis.com. If I were to try to remove grog@lemis.com from > the list, it would fail: I would have to specify the name with > which I joined. > > 2. You're subscribed to a mailing list which is subscribed to > FreeBSD-questions. If that's the case, you'll have to figure out > which one it is and get your name taken off that one. If you're > not sure which one it might be, check the headers of the > messages you receive from freebsd-questions: maybe there's a > clue there. > > If you've done all this, and you still can't figure out what's going > on, send a message to Postmaster@FreeBSD.org, and he will sort things > out for you. Don't send a message to FreeBSD-questions: they can't > help you. > > III: Should I ask -questions or -hackers? > ========================================= > > Two mailing lists handle general questions about FreeBSD, > FreeBSD-questions and FreeBSD-hackers. In some cases, it's not really > clear which group you should ask. The following criteria should help > for 99% of all questions, however: > > If the question is of a general nature, ask > FreeBSD-questions. Examples might be questions about intstalling > FreeBSD or the use of a particular UNIX utility. > > If you think the question relates to a bug, but you're not sure, > or you don't know how to look for it, send the message to > FreeBSD-questions. > > If the question relates to a bug, and you're sure that it's a bug > (for example, you can pinpoint the place in the code where it > happens, and you maybe have a fix), then send the message to > FreeBSD-hackers. > > If the question relates to enhancements to FreeBSD, and you can > make suggestions about how to implement them, then send the > message to FreeBSD-hackers. > > There are also a number of other specialized mailing lists, for > example FreeBSD-isp, which caters to the interests of ISPs (Internet > Service Providers) who run FreeBSD. If you happen to be an ISP, this > doesn't mean you should automatically send your questions to > FreeBSD-isp. The criteria above still apply, and it's in your interest > to stick to them, since you're more likely to get good results that > way. > > IV: How to submit a question > ============================= > > When submitting a question to FreeBSD-questions, consider the > following points: > > 1. Remember that nobody gets paid for answering a FreeBSD > question. They do it of their own free will. You can influence > this free will positively by submitting a well-formulated > question supplying as much relevant information as possible. You > can influence this free will negatively by submitting an > incomplete, illegible, or rude question. It's perfectly possible > to send a message to FreeBSD-questions and not get an answer > even if you follow these rules. It's much more possible to not > get an answer if you don't. In the rest of this document, we'll > look at how to get the most out of your question to > FreeBSD-questions. > > 2. Not everybody who answers FreeBSD questions reads every message: > they look at the subject line and decide whether it interests > them. Clearly, it's in your interest to specify a > subject. ``FreeBSD problem'' or ``Help'' aren't enough. If you > provide no subject at all, many people won't bother reading > it. If your subject isn't specific enough, the people who can > answer it may not read it. > > 3. Format your message so that it is legible, and PLEASE DON'T > SHOUT!!!!!. We appreciate that a lot of people don't speak > English as their first language, and we try to make allowances > for that, but it's really painful to try to read a message > written full of typos or without any line breaks. A lot of badly > formatted messages come from bad mailers or badly configured > mailers. The following mailers are known to send out badly > formatted messages without you finding out about them: > > Eudora > exmh > Microsoft Exchange > Microsoft Internet Mail > Microsoft Outlook > Netscape > > As you can see, the mailers in the Microsoft world are frequent > offenders. If at all possible, use a UNIX mailer. If you must > use a mailer under Microsoft environments, make sure it is set > up correctly. Try not to use MIME: a lot of people use mailers > which don't get on very well with MIME. > > For further information on this subject, check > http://www.lemis.com/email.html. > > 4. Make sure your time and time zone are set correctly. This may > seem a little silly, since your message still gets there, but > many of the people you are trying to reach get several hundred > messages a day. They frequently sort the incoming messages by > subject and by date, and if your message doesn't come before the > first answer, they may assume they missed it and not bother to > look. > > 5. Don't include unrelated questions in the same message. Firstly, > a long message tends to scare people off, and secondly, it's > more difficult to get all the people who can answer all the > questions to read the message. > > 6. Specify as much information as possible. This is a difficult > area, and we need to expand on what information you need to > submit, but here's a start: > > If you get error messages, don't say ``I get error > messages'', say (for example) ``I get the error message 'No > route to host'''. > > If your system panics, don't say ``My system panicked'', say > (for example) ``my system panicked with the message 'free > vnode isn't'''. > > If you have difficulty installing FreeBSD, please tell us > what hardware you have. In particular, it's important to know > the IRQs and I/O addresses of the boards installed in your > machine. > > If you have difficulty getting PPP to run, describe the > configuration. Which version of PPP do you use? What kind of > authentication do you have? Do you have a static or dynamic > IP address? What kind of messages do you get in the log file? > > 7. If you do all this, and you still don't get an answer, there > could be other reasons. For example, the problem is so > complicated that nobody knows the answer, or the person who does > know the answer was offline. If you don't get an answer after, > say, a week, it might help to re-send the message. If you don't > get an answer to your second message, though, you're probably not > going to get one from this forum. Resending the same message > again and again will only make you unpopular. > > To summarize, let's assume you know the answer to the following > question (yes, it's the same one in each case :-). You choose which of > these two questions you would be more prepared to answer: > > Message 1: > Subject: (none) > > I just can't get hits damn silly FereBSD system to workd, and Im really good at this tsuff, but I have never seen anythign sho difficult to install, it jst wont work whatever I try so why don't y9ou guys tell me what I doing wrong. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message 2: > Subject: Problems installing FreeBSD > > I've just got the FreeBSD 2.1.5 CD-ROM from Walnut Creek, and I'm > having a lot of difficulty installing it. I have a 66 MHz 486 with 16 > MB of memory and an Adaptec 1540A SCSI board, a 1.2GB Quantum Fireball > disk and a Toshiba 3501XA CD-ROM drive. The installation works just > fine, but when I try to reboot the system, I get the message "Missing > Operating System". > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > V: How to answer a question > =========================== > > Before you answer a question to FreeBSD-questions, consider: > > 1. A lot of the points on submitting questions also apply to > answering questions. Read them. > > 2. Has somebody already answered the question? The easiest way to > check this is to sort your incoming mail by subject: then > (hopefully) you'll see the question followed by any answers, all > together. > > If somebody has already answered it, it doesn't automatically mean > that you shouldn't send another answer. But it makes sense to > read all the other answers first. > > 3. Do you have something to contribute beyond what has already been > said? In general, "Yeah, me too" answers don't help much, > although there are exceptions, like when somebody is describing a > problem he's having, and he doesn't know whether it's his fault or > whether there's something wrong with the hardware or software. If > you do send a "me too" answer, you should also include any further > relevant information. > > 4. Are you sure your answer is correct? If not, wait a day or so. > If nobody else comes up with a better answer, you can still reply > and say, for example, "I don't know if this is correct, but since > nobody else has replied, why don't you try replacing your ATAPI > CD-ROM with a frog?". > > 5. Don't do a group reply; lots of people send messages with hundreds > of CCs. Unless there's a good reason to do otherwise, just reply > to the person and copy FreeBSD-questions. > > 6. Trim the original message to the minimum, and use some technique > to identify which text came from the original message, and which > text you add. I personally find that prepending "> " to the > original message works best. Leaving white space after the ">" > and leave empty lines between your text and the original text both > make the result more readable. > > Most mailers change the subject line on a reply by prepending a > text such as "Re: ". If your mailer doesn't do it automatically, > you should do it manually. > > If the submitter didn't abide by format conventions (lines too > long, inappropriate subject line), *please* fix it. In the case > of an incorrect subject line (such as "HELP!!??"), change the > subject line to (say) "Re: Difficulties with sync PPP (was: > HELP!!??)". That way other people trying to follow the thread > will have less difficulty following it. > > In such cases, it's appropriate to say what you did and why you > did it, but try not to be rude. If you find you can't answer > without being rude, don't answer. > > If you just want to reply to a message because of its bad format, > just reply to the submitter, not to the list. You can just send > him this message in reply, if you like. > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message Greg Lehey wrote: > > How to get the best results from FreeBSD questions. > =================================================== > > Last update 23 February 1998 > > This is a regular posting to the FreeBSD questions mailing list. If > you got it in answer to a message you sent, it means that the sender > thinks that at least one of the following things was wrong with your > message: > > - You left out a subject line, or the subject line was not appropriate. > - You formatted it in such a way that it was difficult to read. > - You asked more than one unrelated question in one message. > - You sent out a message with an incorrect date, time or time zone. > - You sent out the same message more than once. > - You sent an 'unsubscribe' message to FreeBSD-questions. > > If you have done any of these things, there is a good chance that you > will get more than one copy of this message from different people. > Read on, and your next message will be more successful. > > This document is also available on the web at > http://www.lemis.com/questions.html. > > ===================================================================== > > Contents: > > I: Introduction > II: How to unsubscribe from FreeBSD-questions > III: Should I ask -questions or -hackers? > IV: How to submit a question to FreeBSD-questions > V: How to answer a question to FreeBSD-questions > > I: Introduction > =============== > > This is a regular posting aimed to help both those seeking advice from > FreeBSD-questions (the "newcomers"), and also those who answer the > questions (the "hackers"). > > Note that the term "hacker" has nothing to do with break- ing > into other people's computers. The correct term for the latter > activity is "cracker", but the popular press hasn't found out > yet. The FreeBSD hackers disapprove strongly of cracking > security, and have nothing to do with it. > > In the past, there has been some friction which stems from the > different viewpoints of the two groups. The newcomers accused the > hackers of being arrogant, stuck-up, and unhelpful, while the hackers > accused the newcomers of being stupid, unable to read plain English, > and expecting everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. Of > course, there's an element of truth in both these claims, but for the > most part these viewpoints come from a sense of frustration. > > In this document, I'd like to do something to relieve this frustration > and help everybody get better results from FreeBSD-questions. In the > following section, I recommend how to submit a question; after that, > we'll look at how to answer one. > > II: How to unsubscribe from FreeBSD-questions > ============================================== > > When you subscribed to FreeBSD-questions, you got a welcome message > from Majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG. In this message, amongst other things, it > told you how to unsubscribe. Here's a typical message: > > Welcome to the freebsd-questions mailing list! > > If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list, > you can send mail to "Majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG" with the following command > in the body of your email message: > > unsubscribe freebsd-questions Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.de> > > Here's the general information for the list you've > subscribed to, in case you don't already have it: > > FREEBSD-QUESTIONS User questions > This is the mailing list for questions about FreeBSD. You should not > send "how to" questions to the technical lists unless you consider the > question to be pretty technical. > > Normally, unsubscribing is even simpler than the message suggests: you > don't need to specify your mail ID unless it is different from the one > which you specified when you subscribed. > > If Majordomo replies and tells you (incorrectly) that you're not on > the list, this may mean one of two things: > > 1. You have changed your mail ID since you subscribed. That's where > keeping the original message from majordomo comes in handy. For > example, the sample message above shows my mail ID as > grog@lemis.de. Since then, I have changed it to > grog@lemis.com. If I were to try to remove grog@lemis.com from > the list, it would fail: I would have to specify the name with > which I joined. > > 2. You're subscribed to a mailing list which is subscribed to > FreeBSD-questions. If that's the case, you'll have to figure out > which one it is and get your name taken off that one. If you're > not sure which one it might be, check the headers of the > messages you receive from freebsd-questions: maybe there's a > clue there. > > If you've done all this, and you still can't figure out what's going > on, send a message to Postmaster@FreeBSD.org, and he will sort things > out for you. Don't send a message to FreeBSD-questions: they can't > help you. > > III: Should I ask -questions or -hackers? > ========================================= > > Two mailing lists handle general questions about FreeBSD, > FreeBSD-questions and FreeBSD-hackers. In some cases, it's not really > clear which group you should ask. The following criteria should help > for 99% of all questions, however: > > If the question is of a general nature, ask > FreeBSD-questions. Examples might be questions about intstalling > FreeBSD or the use of a particular UNIX utility. > > If you think the question relates to a bug, but you're not sure, > or you don't know how to look for it, send the message to > FreeBSD-questions. > > If the question relates to a bug, and you're sure that it's a bug > (for example, you can pinpoint the place in the code where it > happens, and you maybe have a fix), then send the message to > FreeBSD-hackers. > > If the question relates to enhancements to FreeBSD, and you can > make suggestions about how to implement them, then send the > message to FreeBSD-hackers. > > There are also a number of other specialized mailing lists, for > example FreeBSD-isp, which caters to the interests of ISPs (Internet > Service Providers) who run FreeBSD. If you happen to be an ISP, this > doesn't mean you should automatically send your questions to > FreeBSD-isp. The criteria above still apply, and it's in your interest > to stick to them, since you're more likely to get good results that > way. > > IV: How to submit a question > ============================= > > When submitting a question to FreeBSD-questions, consider the > following points: > > 1. Remember that nobody gets paid for answering a FreeBSD > question. They do it of their own free will. You can influence > this free will positively by submitting a well-formulated > question supplying as much relevant information as possible. You > can influence this free will negatively by submitting an > incomplete, illegible, or rude question. It's perfectly possible > to send a message to FreeBSD-questions and not get an answer > even if you follow these rules. It's much more possible to not > get an answer if you don't. In the rest of this document, we'll > look at how to get the most out of your question to > FreeBSD-questions. > > 2. Not everybody who answers FreeBSD questions reads every message: > they look at the subject line and decide whether it interests > them. Clearly, it's in your interest to specify a > subject. ``FreeBSD problem'' or ``Help'' aren't enough. If you > provide no subject at all, many people won't bother reading > it. If your subject isn't specific enough, the people who can > answer it may not read it. > > 3. Format your message so that it is legible, and PLEASE DON'T > SHOUT!!!!!. We appreciate that a lot of people don't speak > English as their first language, and we try to make allowances > for that, but it's really painful to try to read a message > written full of typos or without any line breaks. A lot of badly > formatted messages come from bad mailers or badly configured > mailers. The following mailers are known to send out badly > formatted messages without you finding out about them: > > Eudora > exmh > Microsoft Exchange > Microsoft Internet Mail > Microsoft Outlook > Netscape > > As you can see, the mailers in the Microsoft world are frequent > offenders. If at all possible, use a UNIX mailer. If you must > use a mailer under Microsoft environments, make sure it is set > up correctly. Try not to use MIME: a lot of people use mailers > which don't get on very well with MIME. > > For further information on this subject, check > http://www.lemis.com/email.html. > > 4. Make sure your time and time zone are set correctly. This may > seem a little silly, since your message still gets there, but > many of the people you are trying to reach get several hundred > messages a day. They frequently sort the incoming messages by > subject and by date, and if your message doesn't come before the > first answer, they may assume they missed it and not bother to > look. > > 5. Don't include unrelated questions in the same message. Firstly, > a long message tends to scare people off, and secondly, it's > more difficult to get all the people who can answer all the > questions to read the message. > > 6. Specify as much information as possible. This is a difficult > area, and we need to expand on what information you need to > submit, but here's a start: > > If you get error messages, don't say ``I get error > messages'', say (for example) ``I get the error message 'No > route to host'''. > > If your system panics, don't say ``My system panicked'', say > (for example) ``my system panicked with the message 'free > vnode isn't'''. > > If you have difficulty installing FreeBSD, please tell us > what hardware you have. In particular, it's important to know > the IRQs and I/O addresses of the boards installed in your > machine. > > If you have difficulty getting PPP to run, describe the > configuration. Which version of PPP do you use? What kind of > authentication do you have? Do you have a static or dynamic > IP address? What kind of messages do you get in the log file? > > 7. If you do all this, and you still don't get an answer, there > could be other reasons. For example, the problem is so > complicated that nobody knows the answer, or the person who does > know the answer was offline. If you don't get an answer after, > say, a week, it might help to re-send the message. If you don't > get an answer to your second message, though, you're probably not > going to get one from this forum. Resending the same message > again and again will only make you unpopular. > > To summarize, let's assume you know the answer to the following > question (yes, it's the same one in each case :-). You choose which of > these two questions you would be more prepared to answer: > > Message 1: > Subject: (none) > > I just can't get hits damn silly FereBSD system to workd, and Im really good at this tsuff, but I have never seen anythign sho difficult to install, it jst wont work whatever I try so why don't y9ou guys tell me what I doing wrong. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message 2: > Subject: Problems installing FreeBSD > > I've just got the FreeBSD 2.1.5 CD-ROM from Walnut Creek, and I'm > having a lot of difficulty installing it. I have a 66 MHz 486 with 16 > MB of memory and an Adaptec 1540A SCSI board, a 1.2GB Quantum Fireball > disk and a Toshiba 3501XA CD-ROM drive. The installation works just > fine, but when I try to reboot the system, I get the message "Missing > Operating System". > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > V: How to answer a question > =========================== > > Before you answer a question to FreeBSD-questions, consider: > > 1. A lot of the points on submitting questions also apply to > answering questions. Read them. > > 2. Has somebody already answered the question? The easiest way to > check this is to sort your incoming mail by subject: then > (hopefully) you'll see the question followed by any answers, all > together. > > If somebody has already answered it, it doesn't automatically mean > that you shouldn't send another answer. But it makes sense to > read all the other answers first. > > 3. Do you have something to contribute beyond what has already been > said? In general, "Yeah, me too" answers don't help much, > although there are exceptions, like when somebody is describing a > problem he's having, and he doesn't know whether it's his fault or > whether there's something wrong with the hardware or software. If > you do send a "me too" answer, you should also include any further > relevant information. > > 4. Are you sure your answer is correct? If not, wait a day or so. > If nobody else comes up with a better answer, you can still reply > and say, for example, "I don't know if this is correct, but since > nobody else has replied, why don't you try replacing your ATAPI > CD-ROM with a frog?". > > 5. Don't do a group reply; lots of people send messages with hundreds > of CCs. Unless there's a good reason to do otherwise, just reply > to the person and copy FreeBSD-questions. > > 6. Trim the original message to the minimum, and use some technique > to identify which text came from the original message, and which > text you add. I personally find that prepending "> " to the > original message works best. Leaving white space after the ">" > and leave empty lines between your text and the original text both > make the result more readable. > > Most mailers change the subject line on a reply by prepending a > text such as "Re: ". If your mailer doesn't do it automatically, > you should do it manually. > > If the submitter didn't abide by format conventions (lines too > long, inappropriate subject line), *please* fix it. In the case > of an incorrect subject line (such as "HELP!!??"), change the > subject line to (say) "Re: Difficulties with sync PPP (was: > HELP!!??)". That way other people trying to follow the thread > will have less difficulty following it. > > In such cases, it's appropriate to say what you did and why you > did it, but try not to be rude. If you find you can't answer > without being rude, don't answer. > > If you just want to reply to a message because of its bad format, > just reply to the submitter, not to the list. You can just send > him this message in reply, if you like. > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message Who will read that message! I respect your great work but who will read that long boring message for a so little subject. I propose you http://www.aei.ca/~malartre/how-to-ask-en.html http://www.aei.ca/~malartre/how-to-ask-fr.html Sure, it's not complete but the model is there: short explanation for a short subject. It lack of explanation about how to reply and other mailing-list, also about how to subscribe unsubscribe, but it's kinda ok I think. I haved great support from a lot of people and the english on it is near-perfect (wow!) :-) What do you think? I want to know who readed that message from top to bottom. -- [Malartre][malartre@aei.ca][http://www.aei.ca/~malartre/] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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