From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Sep 12 22:33:15 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.21]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6555437B422; Tue, 12 Sep 2000 22:33:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (kris@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.9.3/8.9.2) with ESMTP id WAA32865; Tue, 12 Sep 2000 22:33:13 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kris@FreeBSD.org) X-Authentication-Warning: freefall.freebsd.org: kris owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 22:33:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Kris Kennaway To: Francisco Reyes Cc: "freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG" Subject: Re: Handling of PRs In-Reply-To: <200009130501.BAA32808@sanson.reyes.somos.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Francisco Reyes wrote: > On Tue, 12 Sep 2000 21:59:36 -0700 (PDT), Kris Kennaway wrote: > > >Moreover, checking PR 20939, to which I assume you refer, I think sheldon > >was justified in closing it, because there's nothing which anyone can > >realistically do based on the information you provided there ("it doesnt > >boot"). > > I really wish someone could tell me what else I could have given > so I can do better next time. > The solution to my problem cost me $259. I had to buy a CDrom > (ok so I could have bought a cheap one, but opted for a CD-RW). > > FreeBSD simply would not boot of the floppy. All I can think > that can be given in a situation like this is: > -Brand of floppy drive > -OS version > -Whether the machine boots of some other OS Floppy drives suck. In this case the most likely explanation seems to me to be "hardware problem, buy a new floppy drive". > -Did the FreeBSD boot floppies boot on a different machine You didn't even include this fact - for all the PR said they could have been bad floppies. I don't want to speak for Sheldon or the few other guys who are basically maintaining the PR database on their own, but if it was me the effort involved in trying to extract real details from this near-empty PR which was probably (statistically speaking) just another one of the truly content free PRs about installation failures would be outweighed by working on one which has a higher chance of actually being true. > When a PR is closed by saying "you didn't give enough info" this > doesn't teach the user what info he/she should have sent and > more importantly does NOTHING to help the user. Well, that wasn't what was said: Audit-Trail State-Changed-From-To: open->closed State-Changed-By: sheldonh State-Changed-When: Wed Aug 30 03:44:53 PDT 2000 State-Changed-Why: This doesn't describe a problem with FreeBSD. It also doesn't provide any information that anyone wanting to help might be able to use. Consider providing a much more detailed description (including the details of what you actually see) in an e-mail message to . Take the lesson and realise your PR gave the developers nothing to work on, move on, and think harder about what you include in the next one so that someone has a chance of solving it (or don't mind if it's closed as undecidable). > If we help/teach our users how to send better PRs we all > benefit. We could even write a standard request for info sheet > or put it somewhere on the FAQ/Handbook so people know what they > need to provide. I guess "we" could, but it's not going to appear out of thin air.. Kris -- In God we Trust -- all others must submit an X.509 certificate. -- Charles Forsythe To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message