LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Dale Long <dalel@loftuscomp.com.au>
  To  : Andrew Reid <andrew.reid@plug.cx>
  Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 22:49:55 +0930 (CST)

Re: How to get best results from LinuxSA

On 30 Jun 2001, 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.

While the following suggestions are sound, i think that a new comer will
feel overwhelmed. Eg: "Hey I just wanted to try this Linux thing out and
see what all the fuss was about. Now they want me using a unix mail
client.", and then decides to leave the list and looses interest in
Linux/Unix. The fact that this was an administrator from a major collage
or school has set Linux acceptence back.

It is almost like Microsoft saying that samba is buggy because the Windows
95 client can't handle unkown SMB (I am sure Richard will correct me
here or expand on this).

On a different note, sure, educate the user, but the server side needs to
be robust as well. For example intercepting HTML.

Of all the HTML posts I have seen to the list, none of them have seemed to
be deliberate or overly careless.

> 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.
> 
> This document can also be accessed online, in plain text format from
> http://www.plug.cx/linuxsa.txt.
> 
> 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;
> }
> 
> -- 
> LinuxSA WWW: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/  IRC: #linuxsa on irc.linux.org.au
> To unsubscribe from the LinuxSA list:
>   mail linuxsa-request@linuxsa.org.au with "unsubscribe" as the subject
> 

-- 
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