Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 07:31:04 +1100 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: Tim Erlin <tperlin@yahoo.com> Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: and if -questions doesn't work? Message-ID: <20001202073102.J377@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20001201152804.14434.qmail@web1101.mail.yahoo.com>; from Tim Erlin on Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 07:28:04AM -0800 References: <20001201152804.14434.qmail@web1101.mail.yahoo.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 07:28:04AM -0800, Tim Erlin wrote:
> People consistently send questions to this list, and
> are consistenly advised to send them to -questions.
> I've taken those comments to heart and sent several of
> my questions to -questions. But what do I do if they
> don't get answered?
Then you need to figure out why, and try again. Meanwhile you've
done the right thing by coming here to express your concern.
If you need help to figure out why, you can discuss it here.
We know that this can be a frustrating problem and you'll
get pointers here for asking questions, from people who have
time to read beyond the inevitable frustration without taking
it personally :-)
You have read the advice on how to ask questions, haven't you? Most of
the unanswered questions are ones that could have been rewritten to
make them easier to answer, e.g. just "Why isn't Froogle Graphics in my
path?" is unlikely to get a response. But it can be very hard to
identify what might be lacking in your own question because you're too
close to it. If you were trying to answer that question, what else
would you need to know?
Maybe they have no subject line or an uninformative one (like
"FreeBSD") that people will skip past. Or maybe there wasn't enough
information for a person to figure out what to advise you.
On the other hand, there are some questions that nobody who's around
this week knows the answer to ("Can I do remote logging from a FreeBSD
box to an OS/2 box or vice versa?"), and other questions that can't
effectively been answered ("How do I set up an ISP?"). Your question
might not fall into one of those categories, but it might look like
it does. Emails get lost, too.
Try to guess which might have been the reason, and try again. Remember
they are people just like you who answer questions because they want
to, and the more that they want to the more they will answer. If you
don't like the way our support works, look on the web site for a list
of commercial support companies.
If you want help in using freebsd-questions, or if a question has been
criticised or ignored and you can't see why it was a bad question, go
punch the wall and then come to -newbies for advice on how to get
questions answered. We've all had the same bruised knuckles once or
twice, and you'll find a few bandages attached to the weekly Newbies
FAK email due to arrive in a few hours from now.
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20001202073102.J377>