<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD DocBook V4.1-Based Extension//EN" [
<!ENTITY % man PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Manual Page Entities//EN">
%man;
<!ENTITY % mailing-lists PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Mailing List Entities//EN">
%mailing-lists;
]>

<article>
  <articleinfo>
    <title>How to get best results from the FreeBSD-questions mailing
      list</title>

    <author>
      <firstname>Greg</firstname>
      <surname>Lehey</surname>

      <affiliation>
	<address><email>grog@FreeBSD.org</email></address>
      </affiliation>
    </author>

    <pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>

    <abstract>
      <para>This document provides useful information for people looking to
	prepare an e-mail to the FreeBSD-questions mailing list.  Advice and
	hints are given that will maximise the chance that the reader will
	receive useful replies.</para>

      <para>This document is regularly posted to the FreeBSD-questions mailing
	list.</para>
    </abstract>
  </articleinfo>
  
  <sect1>
    <title id="Introduction">Introduction</title>
    
    <para><literal>FreeBSD-questions</literal> is a mailing list maintained by
      the FreeBSD project to help people who have questions about the normal
      use of FreeBSD.  Another group, <literal>FreeBSD-hackers</literal>,
      discusses more advanced questions such as future development
      work.</para>

    <note>
      <para>The term <quote>hacker</quote> has nothing to do with breaking
	into other people's computers.  The correct term for the latter
	activity is <quote>cracker</quote>, but the popular press has not found
	out yet.  The FreeBSD hackers disapprove strongly of cracking
	security, and have nothing to do with it.  For a longer description of
	hackers, see Eric Raymond's <ulink
	url="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html">How To Become
	A Hacker</ulink></para>
    </note>
    
    <para>This is a regular posting aimed to help both those seeking advice
      from FreeBSD-questions (the <quote>newcomers</quote>), and also those
      who answer the questions (the <quote>hackers</quote>).</para>

    <para>Inevitably there is some friction, which stems from the different
      viewpoints of the two groups.  The newcomers accuse the hackers of being
      arrogant, stuck-up, and unhelpful, while the hackers accuse the
      newcomers of being stupid, unable to read plain English, and expecting
      everything to be handed to them on a silver platter.  Of course, there is
      an element of truth in both these claims, but for the most part these
      viewpoints come from a sense of frustration.</para>

    <para>In this document, I would like to do something to relieve this
      frustration and help everybody get better results from
      FreeBSD-questions.  In the following section, I recommend how to submit
      a question; after that, we will look at how to answer one.</para>
  </sect1>
  
  <sect1>
    <title id="subscribe">How to subscribe to FreeBSD-questions</title>

    <para>FreeBSD-questions is a mailing list, so you need mail access.  Send
      a mail message to &a.majordomo; with the single line:</para>

    <literallayout class="monospaced">subscribe FreeBSD-questions</literallayout>
    
    <para><application>majordomo</application> is an automatic program which
      maintains the mailing list, so you do not need a subject line.  If your
      mailer complains, however, you can put anything you like in the subject
      line.</para>
    
    <para>When you get the reply from <application>majordomo</application>
      telling you the details of the list, <emphasis>please save
      it</emphasis>. If you ever should want to leave the list, you will need
      the information there.  See the next section for more details.</para>
  </sect1>
  
  <sect1>
    <title id="unsubscribe">How to unsubscribe from FreeBSD-questions</title>

    <para>When you subscribed to FreeBSD-questions, you got a welcome message
      from <email>Majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG</email>.  In this message, amongst
      other things, it told you how to unsubscribe.  Here is a typical
      message:</para>

    <literallayout class="monospaced">Welcome to the freebsd-questions mailing list!

If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list, you can send
mail to "Majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG" with the following command in the body
of your email message:

unsubscribe freebsd-questions Greg Lehey &lt;grog@lemis.de&gt;

Here's the general information for the list you've subscribed to,
in case you don't already have it:

FREEBSD-QUESTIONS               User questions
This is the mailing list for questions about FreeBSD.
You should not send "how to" questions to the technical lists unless
you consider the question to be pretty technical.</literallayout>

    <para>Normally, unsubscribing is even simpler than the message suggests:
      you do not need to specify your mail ID unless it is different from the
      one which you specified when you subscribed.</para>

    <para>If Majordomo replies and tells you (incorrectly) that you are not on
      the list, this may mean one of two things:</para>

    <orderedlist>
      <listitem>
	<para>You have changed your mail ID since you subscribed.  That is
	  where keeping the original message from <literal>majordomo</literal>
	  comes in handy. For example, the sample message above shows my mail
	  ID as <literal>grog@lemis.de</literal>.  Since then, I have changed
	  it to <literal>grog@lemis.com</literal>.  If I were to try to remove
	  <literal>grog@lemis.com</literal> from the list, it would fail: I
	  would have to specify the name with which I joined.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>You are subscribed to a mailing list which is subscribed to
	  <literal>FreeBSD-questions</literal>.  If that is the case, you will
	  have to figure out which one it is and get your name taken off that
	  one.  If you are not sure which one it might be, check the headers of
	  the messages you receive from freebsd-questions: maybe there is a
	  clue there.</para>
      </listitem>
    </orderedlist>

    <para>If you have done all this, and you still can not figure out what is going
      on, send a message to <email>Postmaster@FreeBSD.org</email>, and he will
      sort things out for you.  <emphasis>Do not</emphasis> send a message to
      FreeBSD-questions: they can not help you.</para>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>
    <title id="askwho">Should I ask <literal>-questions</literal> or
      <literal>-hackers</literal>?</title>

    <para>Two mailing lists handle general questions about FreeBSD,
      <literal>FreeBSD-questions</literal> and
      <literal>FreeBSD-hackers</literal>.  In some cases, it is not really
      clear which group you should ask.  The following criteria should help
      for 99% of all questions, however:</para>
    
    <orderedlist>
      <listitem>
	<para>If the question is of a general nature, ask
	  <literal>FreeBSD-questions</literal>.  Examples might be questions
	  about installing FreeBSD or the use of a particular UNIX
	  utility.</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>If you think the question relates to a bug, but you are not sure,
	  or you do not know how to look for it, send the message to
	  <literal>FreeBSD-questions</literal>.</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>If the question relates to a bug, and you are
	  <emphasis>sure</emphasis> that it is a bug (for example, you can
	  pinpoint the place in the code where it happens, and you maybe have
	  a fix), then send the message to
	  <literal>FreeBSD-hackers</literal>.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>If the question relates to enhancements to FreeBSD, and you
	  can make suggestions about how to implement them, then send the
	  message to <literal>FreeBSD-hackers</literal>.</para>
      </listitem>
    </orderedlist>

    <para>There are also a number of other specialized mailing lists, for
      example <literal>FreeBSD-isp</literal>, which caters to the interests of
      ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who run FreeBSD.  If you happen to be
      an ISP, this does not mean you should automatically send your questions
      to <literal>FreeBSD-isp</literal>.  The criteria above still apply, and
      it is in your interest to stick to them, since you are more likely to get
      good results that way.</para>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>
    <title id="submit">How to submit a question</title>
  
    <para>When submitting a question to FreeBSD-questions, consider the
      following points:</para>

    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
	<para>Remember that nobody gets paid for answering a FreeBSD
	  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 is perfectly possible to send a
	  message to FreeBSD-questions and not get an answer even if you
	  follow these rules.  It is much more possible to not get an answer if
	  you do not.  In the rest of this document, we will look at how to get
	  the most out of your question to FreeBSD-questions.</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>Not everybody who answers FreeBSD questions reads every message:
	  they look at the subject line and decide whether it interests them.
	  Clearly, it is in your interest to specify a subject. <quote>FreeBSD
	  problem</quote> or <quote>Help</quote> are not enough.  If you provide no subject at
	  all, many people will not bother reading it.  If your subject is not
	  specific enough, the people who can answer it may not read
	  it.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>Format your message so that it is	legible, and
	    PLEASE DO NOT SHOUT!!!!!.  We appreciate that a lot of people do not
	    speak English as their first language, and we try to make
	    allowances for that, but it is really painful to try to read a
	    message written full of typos or without any line breaks.</para>
	
	<para>Do not underestimate the effect that a poorly formatted mail
	  message has, not just on the FreeBSD-questions mailing list.
	  Your mail message is all people see of you, and if it is poorly
	  formatted, one line per paragraph, badly spelt, or full of
	  errors, it will give people a poor impression of you.</para>

	<para>A lot of badly formatted messages come from
	  <ulink url="http://www.lemis.com/email.html">bad mailers or badly
	  configured mailers</ulink>.  The following mailers are known to
	  send out badly formatted messages without you finding out about
	  them:</para>

	<itemizedlist>
	  <listitem>
	    <para>cc:Mail</para>
	  </listitem>

	  <listitem>
	    <para>Eudora</para>
	  </listitem>

	  <listitem>
	    <para>exmh</para>
	  </listitem>

	  <listitem>
	    <para>Microsoft Exchange</para>
	  </listitem>

	  <listitem>
	    <para>Microsoft Internet Mail</para>
	  </listitem>

	  <listitem>
	    <para>Microsoft Outlook</para>
	  </listitem>

	  <listitem>
	    <para>Netscape</para>
	  </listitem>
	</itemizedlist>

	<para>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 it is set up
	  correctly. Try not to use <acronym>MIME</acronym>: a lot of people
	  use mailers which do not get on very well with
	  <acronym>MIME</acronym>.</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>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 you are trying to reach get several hundred messages a
	  day.  They frequently sort the incoming messages by subject and by
	  date, and if your message does not come before the first answer, they
	  may assume they missed it and not bother to look.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>Do not include unrelated questions in the same message.  Firstly,
	  a long message tends to scare people off, and secondly, it is more
	  difficult to get all the people who can answer all the questions to
	  read the message.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>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 is a start:</para>

	<itemizedlist>
	  <listitem>
	    <para>In nearly every case, it is important to know the version of
	      FreeBSD you are running.  This is particularly the case for
	      FreeBSD-CURRENT, where you should also specify the date of the
	      sources, though of course you should not be sending questions
	      about -CURRENT to FreeBSD-questions.</para>
	  </listitem>
	  
	  <listitem><para>With any problem which <emphasis>could</emphasis> be
	      hardware related, tell us about your hardware.  In case of
	      doubt, assume it is possible that it is hardware.  What kind of
	      CPU are you using?  How fast?  What motherboard?  How much
	      memory?  What peripherals?</para>

	    <para>There is a judgement call here, of course, but the output of
	      the &man.dmesg.8; command can frequently be very useful, since it
	      tells not just what hardware you are running, but what version of
	      FreeBSD as well.</para>
	  </listitem>
	  
	  <listitem>
	    <para>If you get error messages, do not say <quote>I get error
		messages</quote>, say (for example) <quote>I get the error
		message 'No route to host'</quote>.</para>
	  </listitem>

	  <listitem>
	    <para>If your system panics, do not say <quote>My system
		panicked</quote>, say (for example) <quote>my system panicked
		with the message 'free vnode isn't'</quote>.</para>
	  </listitem>

	  <listitem>
	    <para>If you have difficulty installing FreeBSD, please tell us
	      what hardware you have.  In particular, it is important to know
	      the IRQs and I/O addresses of the boards installed in your
	      machine.</para>
	  </listitem>

	  <listitem>
	    <para>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?</para>
	  </listitem>
	</itemizedlist>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
          <para>A lot of the information you need to supply is the output of
	  programs, such as &man.dmesg.8;, or console messages, which usually
	  appear in <filename>/var/log/messages</filename>.  Do not try to copy
	  this information by typing it in again; it is a real pain, and you are
	  bound to make a mistake. To send log file contents, either make a
	  copy of the file and use an editor to trim the information to what
	  is relevant, or cut and paste into your message.  For the output of
	  programs like &man.dmesg.8;, redirect the output to a file and
	  include that.  For example,</para>

	<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>dmesg &gt; /tmp/dmesg.out</userinput></screen>

	<para>This redirects the information to the file
	  <filename>/tmp/dmesg.out</filename>.</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>If you do all this, and you still do not get an answer, there
	  could be other reasons.  For example, the problem is so complicated
	  that nobody knows the answer, or the person who does know the answer
	  was offline.  If you do not get an answer after, say, a week, it
	  might help to re-send the message.  If you do not get an answer to
	  your second message, though, you are probably not going to get one
	  from this forum.  Resending the same message again and again will
	  only make you unpopular.</para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>
    
    <para>To summarize, let's assume you know the answer to the following
      question (yes, it is the same one in each case).
      You choose which of these two questions you would be more prepared to
      answer:</para>

    <example>
      <title>Message 1</title>

      <literallayout class="monospaced">Subject: HELP!!?!??
I just can't get hits damn silly FereBSD system to
workd, and Im really good at this tsuff, but I have never seen
anythign sho difficult to install, it jst wont work whatever I try
so why don't y9ou guys tell me what I doing wrong.</literallayout>
    </example>

    <example>
      <title>Message 2</title>

    <literallayout class="monospaced">Subject: Problems installing FreeBSD

I've just got the FreeBSD 2.1.5 CDROM from Walnut Creek, and I'm having a lot
of difficulty installing it.  I have a 66 MHz 486 with 16 MB of
memory and an Adaptec 1540A SCSI board, a 1.2GB Quantum Fireball
disk and a Toshiba 3501XA CDROM drive.  The installation works just
fine, but when I try to reboot the system, I get the message
<quote>Missing Operating System</quote>.</literallayout>
    </example>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>
    <title id="followup">How to follow up to a question</title>

    <para>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:</para>

    <orderedlist>
      <listitem>
	<para>You include the original message text, so people will know what
	  you are talking about.  Do not forget to trim unnecessary text out,
	  though.</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>The text in the subject line stays the same (you did remember to
	  put one in, did you not?).  Many mailers will sort messages by
	  subject. This helps group messages together.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>The message reference numbers in the header will refer to the
	  previous message.  Some mailers, such as
	  <ulink url="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</ulink>, can
	  <emphasis>thread</emphasis> messages, showing the exact
	  relationships between the messages.</para>
      </listitem>
    </orderedlist>
  </sect1>
  
  <sect1>
    <title id="answer">How to answer a question</title>


    <para>Before you answer a question to FreeBSD-questions, consider:</para>

    <orderedlist>
      <listitem>
	<para>A lot of the points on submitting questions also apply to
	  answering questions.  Read them.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>Has somebody already answered the question?  The easiest way to
	  check this is to sort your incoming mail by subject: then
	  (hopefully) you will see the question followed by any answers, all
	  together.</para>
	
	<para>If somebody has already answered it, it does not automatically
	  mean that you should not send another answer.  But it makes sense to
	  read all the other answers first.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>Do you have something to contribute beyond what has already been
	  said?  In general, <quote>Yeah, me too</quote> answers do not help
	  much, although there are exceptions, like when somebody is
	  describing a problem he is having, and he does not know whether it is
	  his fault or whether there is something wrong with the hardware or
	  software.  If you do send a <quote>me too</quote> answer, you should
	  also include any further relevant information.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>Are you sure you understand the question?  Very frequently, the
	  person who asks the question is confused or does not express himself
	  very well.  Even with the best understanding of the system, it is
	  easy to send a reply which does not answer the question.  This
	  does not help: you will leave the person who submitted the question
	  more frustrated or confused than ever.  If nobody else answers, and
	  you are not too sure either, you can always ask for more
	  information.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>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, <quote>I
	do not know if this is correct, but since nobody else has
	replied, why don't you try replacing your ATAPI CDROM with
	a frog?</quote>.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, reply to the
	  sender and to FreeBSD-questions. Many people on the
	  FreeBSD-questions are <quote>lurkers</quote>: 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 are depriving these people
	  of their information. Be careful with group replies; lots of people
	  send messages with hundreds of CCs. If this is the case, be sure to
	  trim the Cc: lines appropriately.</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>Include relevant text from the original message. Trim it to the
	  minimum, but do not overdo it.  It should still be possible for
	  somebody who did not read the original message to understand what
	  you are talking about.</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>Use some technique to identify which text came from the original
	  message, and which text you add.  I personally find that prepending
	  <quote><literal>&gt; </literal></quote> to the original message
	  works best.  Leaving white space after the
	  <quote><literal>&gt; </literal></quote> and leave empty lines
	  between your text and the original text both make the result more
	  readable.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>Put your response in the correct place (after the text to which
	  it replies).  It is very difficult to read a thread of responses
	  where each reply comes before the text to which it replies.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>Most mailers change the subject line on a reply by prepending a
	  text such as <quote>Re: </quote>.  If your mailer does not do it
	  automatically, you should do it manually.</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>If the submitter did not abide by format conventions (lines too
	  long, inappropriate subject line), <emphasis>please</emphasis> fix
	  it. In the case of an incorrect subject line (such as
	  <quote>HELP!!??</quote>), change the subject line to (say)
	  <quote>Re: Difficulties with sync PPP (was: HELP!!??)</quote>.  That
	  way other people trying to follow the thread will have less
	  difficulty following it.</para>

	<para>In such cases, it is appropriate to say what you did and why you
	  did it, but try not to be rude.  If you find you can not answer
	  without being rude, do not answer.</para>

	<para>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.</para>
      </listitem>
    </orderedlist>
  </sect1>
</article>

<!-- 
     Local Variables:
     mode: sgml
     sgml-indent-data: t
     sgml-omittag: nil
     sgml-always-quote-attributes: t
     End:
-->
