[freeside-users] MAILING LIST POSTING GUIDELINES

[Adam Dobrin]

ivan,

where are you?

i need a good ski buddy.


ivan wrote:

>I'm going to try posting this every few months, since people don't seem 
>to be following the instructions sent when they signed up for the list.  
>I'd welcome contributions toward making these guidelines more clear and 
>understandable; towards this end, I've put them in the Wiki at 
><http://www.sisd.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Mailing_List_Guidelines>.
>
>
>--------------------
>-----GUIDELINES-----
>--------------------
>
>BEFORE YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT POSTING TO THE LIST, READ ALL OF 
><http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>.  YES, THIS MEANS 
>YOU!
>
>In an effort to keep the noise level down, users are REQUIRED to do the 
>following before posting questions or problems to the list:
>
>- Report the exact Freeside version being used.  If you are using a 
>  snapshot from CVS, report the date you pulled or updated that snapshot 
>  and be aware you are testing and reporting problems in unreleased 
>  development code.
>
>- Report if Apache::ASP or HTML::Mason is being used, and the version 
>  number.
>
>- Verify that the software Freeside depends on (Apache, Perl, DBI, DBD, 
>  the database engine, other Perl modules, etc.) are installed and 
>  working.  Problems installing this software are outside the scope of 
>  the list.
>
>- Report the version of the OS, Perl, database engine, DBI and DBD.
>
>- Report the exact error message, if any, and also the relevant contents 
>  of Apache's error.log, if applicable.
>
>YES, THIS MEANS YOU!  If you can't report ALL the information requested, 
>don't bother posting your problem.
>
>
>--------------------------------
>-----EDITORIAL AND EXAMPLES-----
>--------------------------------
>
>I am too busy these days to give most mailing list messages about 
>problems more than a quick skim.  If I'm looking at a message and it 
>strikes me as being something specific to a particular Freeside version, 
>or OS, or Perl or Pg version or whatever, and that information is 
>missing, I'm not going to play twenty questions.  I'm not even going to 
>reply and re-send you these guidelines anymore.  I'm most likely going 
>to delete the message and ignore your future posts as well.
>
>
>BAD:
>
>  "I am using version 1.5.8 on a HP Proliant DL145 with 768 MB of RAM.  
>  Apache 1.3.3 and Postgres 7.8."
>
>  This poster barely provided any of the information requested, 
>  provided irrelevant information not requested instead, reported 
>  an unreleased version number that could indicate code anywhere from 
>  yesterday to six months old, and reported a non-existant Postgres 
>  version.  I am unlikely to give this message a second thought.  I'll 
>  probably delete it and go skiing.
>
>
>GOOD:
>
>  "I am using version 1.5.8cvs pulled from CVS on 12/22/2005, on Debian 
>  3.1.  I am using HTML::Mason 1.3101, Perl 5.8.7, PostgreSQL 7.4.8, DBI 
>  1.48 and DBD::Pg 1.43."
>
>  This poster took the time to read the guidelines and report the 
>  requested information.  I am more likely to spend a few minutes of my 
>  time looking at their problem rather than ignoring their message and 
>  going skiing.  Unless its a powder day, in which case I'll ignore 
>  everything anyway.  :)
>
>
>  
>