Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 12:02:03 +0100 (MET) From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.de> To: rajeshsri@hotmail.com (rajesh srivastava) Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How to particpate in this Forum Message-ID: <199611151102.MAA00582@freebie.lemis.de> In-Reply-To: <19961112071837.14678.qmail@hotmail.com> from rajesh srivastava at "Nov 12, 96 07:18:37 am"
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rajesh srivastava writes: > Hi! > > Can I participate in this forum i.e. provide my views on questions asked. Sure! Go ahead, if you have something to say. In my "How to get best results" regular posting, I say: + IV: 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. Bear in mind that I am not the keeper of -questions. Others may have other opinions, and as long as they're polite, they're welcome. Greg
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