LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Andrew Reid <andrew.reid@plug.cx>
  To  : Andrew Reid <andrew.reid@plug.cx>
  Date: 30 Jun 2001 22:19:24 +0930

Re: How to get best results from LinuxSA

On 30 Jun 2001 22:15:39 +0930, Andrew Reid wrote:
> There's been a lot of talk on the subject of HTML email, list etiquette
> etc. Since I was one of those who suggested we takeup something like
> "... FreeBSD Questions has, thanks to Greg Lehey...", I thought I'd make
> something of it and nut out what -I- think is appropriate.
> 
> Being a subscriber of FreeBSD Questions, I receive the regular mailings
> from Greg with his suggestions on "how to get the best results from
> LinuxSA". With that in mind, I've taken a lot from that message and
> converted it appropriately. Thanks goes to Greg for his efforts in
> making the FreeBSD Questions list a nicer place[1].
> 
> This is still has a few holes the need patching up (in the form of
> FIXME:'s where I didn't have the resources on me to fix them). I'd be
> happy to accept contributions that cover those holes.
> 
> How to get the best results from LinuxSA.
> =========================================
> 
> Last update 30 June 2001
> 
> This is a regular posting to the LinuxSA mailing list. If you received
> it in reply to a message you sent, it probably means 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 LinuxSA.
> 
> If you have done more than one of these things, there is a good chance
> that you will receive more than one copy of this message from different
> people. Read on, and your next message will be more successful.
> 
> This document is maintained by Andrew Reid <andrew.reid@plug.cx>. It was
> "inspired", and in many sections blatently copied from Greg Lehey's "How
> to get best results from FreeBSD-questions" document, available from
> http://www.lemis.com/questions.html.

REMOVED:
> This document can also be accessed online, in plain text format from
> http://www.plug.cx/linuxsa.txt.

ADDED:
This document can also be accessed online, in HTML format from
http://www.plug.cx/linuxsa.html.

> Contents:
> 
> I: Introduction
> II: How to unsubscribe from LinuxSA
> III: How to submit a question to LinuxSA
> IV: How to follow up a question to LinuxSA
> IV: How to answer a question to LinuxSA
> 
> I: Introduction
> ===============
> 
> This is a regular posting aimed to help both those seeking advice from
> LinuxSA (the "newcommers"), and also those who answer the questions (the
> "hackers").
> 
> Note that the term hacker has nothing to do with breaking into
> other people's computers.  The correct term for the latter
> activity is "cracker", but the popular press hasn't found out
> yet.  The LinuxSA 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 newcommers accused the hackers of
> being arrogant, stuck-up, and unhelpful, while the hackers accused the
> newcommers 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 of 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 everyone get better results from LinuxSA. 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 LinuxSA
> ===================================
> 
> When you subscribed to LinuxSA, you got a welcome message from
> linuxsa-request@linuxsa.org.au.  In this message, amongst other things,
> it told you how to unsubscribe.  Here's a typical message:
> 
> FIXME: Find a subscription message and copy the appropriate bits
> here.
> 
> Generally, unsubscribing from LinuxSA is a trivial task and takes only a
> few seconds of your time. In fact, the process is so short and simple,
> the instructions are included at the bottom of each message sent to
> linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au:
> 
> To unsubscribe from the LinuxSA list:
>  mail linuxsa-request@linuxsa.org.au with "unsubscribe" as the
>  subject
> 
> If SmartList 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 SmartList comes in
> handy. For example, the sample message above shows my mail ID as
> andrew@plug.cx. Since then, I have changed it to
> andrew.reid@plug.cx. Mail for andrew@plug.cx gets shunted to
> andrew.reid@plug.cx, so asking SmartList to remove
> "andrew.reid@plug.cx" from the list is going to fail, seeing as
> it is not subscribed. By changing your "From" address in my mail
> client's configuration to " andrew@plug.cx" and sending the
> unsubscribe request again, you should be more successful.
> 
>  2. You're subscribed to a mailing list which is subscribed to
> LinuxSA. 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 LinuxSA: 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@linuxsa.org.au, and he will sort things out
> for you. Don't send a message to LinuxSA: they can't help you.
> 
> III: How to submit a question to LinuxSA
> ========================================
> 
> When submitting a question to LinuxSA, consider the following points:
> 
>  1. Remember that nobody gets paid for answering a Linux 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 LinuxSA and not get an answer even if you follow
> these rules. It's much more possible not to 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 LinuxSA.
> 
>  2. Not everybody who answers Linux 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.
> "Linux 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 is really painful to try and read a message
> written full of typos or without line breaks. A lot of badly
> formatted messages come from bad mailers of 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 its set up 
> correctly. Correctly can be defined as:
> 
>  - Set to send in PLAIN TEXT and NOT HTML or RICH TEXT.
>  - Set to wrap outgoing text at 72 characters.
>  - Set 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 out
> 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 who you are trying to reach get several
> hundred messages a day. They frequently sort the incomming
> messages by subject and 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 difficuly 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 Linux, please be sure to
>  tell us the following things:
> 
>    - The distribution (ie, RedHat) and the version (ie, 7.1).
>    - The 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?
>  What is the version of the kernel you are running (the command
>  'uname -a' (without the quotes) will give you that
>  information.
> 
>  7. If you don't get an answer immediately, or if you don't even see
> your own message appear on the list immediately, don't resend
> the message. Wait at least 24 hours. The LinuxSA mailer takes a
> little while to distribute the emails to the subscribees. Once
> the message does get through, the person who might know the
> answer may not be at his desk and not able to answer the email.
> 
>  8. If you do all this, and you still get no answer, there could be
> other reasons. For example, the problem is so compilcated that
> nobody knows the answer, or the person who does know the answer
> is offline. If you don't get an answer after, say, a week, it
> might help to resend the message. If you don't get an answer to
> your second message, though, your're probably not going to get
> one from this forum. Resending the same message again and again
> will only make you unpopular.
> 
>  9. Keep your question on-topic. This is a Linux list, so don't go
> asking people what breed of dog you should buy, what mobile
> phone is best or where the cheapeset fuel is today. It's not
> appropriate here. That said, if it can somehow be related to
> Linux, it's probably going to be received well.
> 
> Examples of questions that aren't directly Linux-related but are
> generally accepted as "OK" are:
> 
>  - "What hardware should I buy for my Linux machine?"
>  - "Telstra have tried to screw us again, can they do that?"
>  - "XYZ Unix Application isn't working. <!-- Necessary details
>    ommitted -->. Can someone suggest a way to get it working?"
>  - "Microsoft is saying evil things about the way the Linux
>     world works. Do they have any factual basis for such
>     comments?"
> 
> To summarize, let's assume you know the answer to the following question
> (yes, it's the same on 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 Kinxu system to workd, amd Im really
> good at tsis stuff, but i have never seen antyhing sho difficult to
> intsll, it jsut wont owrk whateer I try so whty dont y9ou guts tell me
> what i doing wrong.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message 2:
> Subject: Problems installing RedHat Linux 7.2
> 
> I've just got the RedHat Linux 7.2 CD-ROM from NetCraft, and I'm having
> a lot of difficulty installing it. I have a 66 MHz 486 with 16MB 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".
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> IV: How to follow up a question to LinuxSA
> ==========================================
> 
> Often you will want to send in additional information to a question you
> have already sent. The best way to do this is to reply to your original
> message. This has three advantages:
> 
>  1. You include the original message text, so people will know what
> you're talking about. Don't forget to trim the unnecessary text
> out though.
> 
>  2. The text in the subject line stays the same (you did remember to
> put one in, didn't you?). Many mailers will sort messages by
> subject. This helps group messages together.
> 
>  3. The message reference numbers in the header will refer to the
> previous message. Some mailers, such as mutt, can thread
> messages, showing the exact relationships between the messages.
> 
> V: How to answer a quetsion to LinuxSA
> ======================================
> 
> Before you answer a question to LinuxSA, 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 incomming 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 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 you understand the question? Very frequently, the
> person who asks the question is confused and doesn't express
> himself very well. Even with the best understanding of the
> system, it's easy to send a reply which doesn't answer the
> question. This doesn't help: you'll heave the person who
> submitted the question more frustrated or confused than ever. If
> nobody else answers, and your not too sure either, you can
> always ask for more information.
> 
>  5. Are you sure you 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?".
> 
>  6. Unless there's a good reason to do otherwise, reply to the
> sender and LinuxSA. Many people on the LinuxSA list are
> "lurkers": they learn by reading messages sent and replied to by
> others. If you take a message which is of general interest off
> the list, you're depriving these people of their information. Be
> careful with hundreds of CCs. If this is the case, be sure to
> trim the Cc: lines appropriately.
> 
>  7. Include relevant text from the original message. Trim it to the
> minimum, but don't overdo it. It should still be possible for
> somebody who didn't read the original message to understand what
> your're talking about.
> 
>  8. 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
> whitespace after the "> " and leave empty lines between your
> text and the original text both make the result more readable.
> 
>  9. Put your response in the correct place (after the text to which
> it replies). It's very difficult to read a thread of responses
> where each reply comes before the text to which it replies.
> 
>  10. Most mailers change the subject line on a reply by prepending a
> text such as "Re: ". If you're mailer doesn't do it
> automatically, you should do it manually.
> 
>  11. If the submitter didn't abide by formatting conventions (lines
> too long, HTML/RTF, innapropriate 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.
> 
> 
> <---- Snip here.
> 
> Please let me know what you think. If there are no objections to the
> principle in general, I'll set a deadline of Wednesday, 5 July 2001 for
> submissions for changes.
> 
> As of Thursday, 6 July 2001, this email (in its current or modified
> form) will be sent out on a monthly basis to linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au by a
> CRON job on one of my servers.
> 
> Now, rather than attaching this message (or its successors) to the
> welcome message, I think a link to http://www.plug.cx/linuxsa.txt would
> be more fitting. People with differing opinions are encouraged to "put
> their case forward".
> 
>   - andrew
> 
> [1] Thanks, Greg for taking the time to think this out. It is apprecated
> and actually seems to work. I believe that this approach can work for us
> too.
> 
> --
> void signature () {
> 	cout << "Andrew Reid -- andrew.reid@plug.cx" << endl ;
> 	cout << "Cell: +61 401 946 813" << endl;
> 	cout << "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur" << endl;
> }
--
void signature () {
	cout << "Andrew Reid -- andrew.reid@plug.cx" << endl ;
	cout << "Cell: +61 401 946 813" << endl;
	cout << "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur" << endl;
}

-- 
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