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<article>
<articleinfo>
<title>Frequently Asked Questions About The &os; Mailing Lists</title>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<surname>The &os; Documentation Project</surname>
</author>
</authorgroup>
<pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>
<copyright>
<year>2004</year>
<year>2005</year>
<holder>The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
</copyright>
<abstract>
<para>This is the FAQ for the &os; mailing lists. If you are
interested in helping with this project, send email to the &a.doc;.
The latest version of this document is always available from the
<ulink
url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/mailing-list-faq/index.html">&os;
World Wide Web server</ulink>. It may also be downloaded as
one large <ulink url="article.html">HTML</ulink> file with HTTP
or as plain text, PostScript, PDF, etc. from the <ulink
url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/">&os; FTP
server</ulink>. You may also want to <ulink
url="&url.base;/search/index.html">Search the
FAQ</ulink>.</para>
</abstract>
</articleinfo>
<sect1 id="introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>As is usual with FAQs, this document aims to cover the
most frequently asked questions concerning the &os; mailing
lists (and of course answer them!). Although originally intended
to reduce bandwidth and avoid the same old questions being asked
over and over again, FAQs have become recognized as valuable
information resources.</para>
<para>This document attempts to represent a community consensus, and
as such it can never really be <emphasis>authoritative</emphasis>.
However, if you find technical errors within this document, or
have suggestions about items that should be added, please either
submit a PR, or email the &a.doc;. Thanks.</para>
<qandaset>
<qandaentry>
<question id="purpose">
<para>What is the purpose of the &os; mailing lists?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>The &os; mailing lists serve as the primary
communication channels for the &os; community, covering many
different topic areas and communities of interest.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="audience">
<para>Who is the audience for the &os; mailing lists?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>This depends on charter of each individual list. Some
lists are more oriented to developers; some are more oriented
towards the &os; community as a whole. Please see <ulink
url="http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo">this list</ulink>
for the current summary.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="participation-who">
<para>Are the &os; mailing lists open for anyone to participate?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Again, this depends on charter of each individual list.
Please read the charter of a mailing list before you post to it,
and respect it when you post. This will help everyone to have
a better experience with the lists.</para>
<para>If after reading the above lists, you still do not know
which mailing list to post a question to, you will probably
want to post to freebsd-questions (but see below, first).</para>
<para>Also note that the mailing lists have traditionally
been open to postings from non-subscribers. This has
been a deliberate choice, to help make joining the &os;
community an easier process, and to encourage open sharing
of ideas. However, due to past abuse by some individuals,
certain lists now have a policy where postings from
non-subscribers must be manually screened to ensure that
they are appropriate.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="subscribe">
<para>How can I subscribe?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>You can use <ulink
url="http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo">
the Mailman web interface</ulink> to subscribe to any
of the public lists.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="unsubscribe">
<para>How can I unsubscribe?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>You can use the same interface as above; or,
you can follow the instructions that are at the
bottom of every mailing list message that is sent.</para>
<para>Please do not send unsubscribe messages directly
to the public lists themselves. First, this will not
accomplish your goal, and second, it will irritate the
existing subscribers, and you will probably get flamed.
This is a classical mistake when using mailing lists;
please try to avoid it.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="archives">
<para>Are archives available?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Yes. Threaded archives are available
<ulink url="http://docs.FreeBSD.org/mail/">here</ulink>.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="digest">
<para>Are mailing lists available in a digest format?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Yes. See <ulink
url="http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo">
the Mailman web interface</ulink>.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
</qandaset>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="etiquette">
<title>Mailing List Etiquette</title>
<para>Participation in the mailing lists, like participation
in any community, requires a common basis for communication.
Please make only appropriate postings, and follow common
rules of etiquette.</para>
<qandaset>
<qandaentry>
<question id="before-posting">
<para>What should I do before I post?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>You have already taken the most important step by
reading this document. However, if you are new to &os;,
you may first need to familiarize yourself with the
software, and all the social history around it, by
reading the numerous
<ulink url="&url.base;/docs/books.html">books and articles</ulink>
that are available. Items of particular interest
include the <ulink
url="&url.books.faq;/index.html">
&os; Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)</ulink> document,
the <ulink
url="&url.books.handbook;/index.html">
&os; Handbook</ulink>,
and the articles <ulink
url="&url.articles.freebsd-questions;/article.html">
How to get best results from the FreeBSD-questions mailing list</ulink>,
<ulink
url="&url.articles.explaining-bsd;/article.html">
Explaining BSD</ulink>,
and <ulink
url="&url.articles.new-users;/article.html">
&os; First Steps</ulink>.</para>
<para>It is always considered bad form to ask a question that is
already answered in the above documents. This is not because
the volunteers who work on this project are particularly mean
people, but after a certain number of times answering the same
questions over and over again, frustration begins to set in.
This is particularly true if there is an existing answer to the
question that is already available. Always keep in mind that
almost all of the work done on &os; is done by volunteers,
and that we are only human.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="inappropriate">
<para>What constitutes an inappropriate posting?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Postings must be in accordance with the charter
of the mailing list.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Personal attacks are discouraged. As good
net-citizens, we should try to hold ourselves to high
standards of behavior.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Spam is not allowed, ever. The mailing lists are
actively processed to ban offenders to this rule.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="etiquette-posting">
<para>What is considered proper etiquette when posting
to the mailing lists?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Please wrap lines at 75 characters, since not
everyone uses fancy GUI mail reading programs.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Please respect the fact that bandwidth is not
infinite. Not everyone reads email through high-speed
connections, so if your posting involves something like
the content of <filename>config.log</filename> or an
extensive stack trace, please consider putting that
information up on a website somewhere and just provide
a URL to it. Remember, too, that these postings will
be archived indefinitely, so huge postings will simply
inflate the size of the archives long after their
purpose has expired.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Format your message so that it is legible, and
PLEASE DO NOT SHOUT!!!!!. Do not underestimate the
effect that a poorly formatted mail message has, and not
just on the &os; mailing lists. Your mail message is
all that people see of you, and if it is poorly formatted,
badly spelled, full of errors, and/or has lots of exclamation
points, it will give people a poor impression of you.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Please use an appropriate human language for a
particular mailing list. Many non-English mailing
lists are
<ulink url="&url.base;/community/mailinglists.html">
available</ulink>.</para>
<para>For the ones that are not, we do appreciate that many
people do not speak English as their first language,
and we try to make allowances for that. It is considered
particularly poor form to criticize non-native speakers
for spelling or grammatical errors. &os; has an
excellent track record in this regard; please, help us
to uphold that tradition.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Please use a standards-compliant Mail User Agent (MUA).
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; (older versions)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>exmh</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>µsoft; Exchange</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>µsoft; Internet Mail</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>µsoft; &outlook;</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>&netscape; (older versions)</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 on these mailing lists
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 that they missed it and not bother to look.</para>
</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; not only it is a
real pain, but 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 <command>dmesg</command>, redirect the output to a
file and include that. For example,</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>dmesg > /tmp/dmesg.out</userinput></screen>
<para>This redirects the information to the file
<filename>/tmp/dmesg.out</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>When using cut-and-paste, please be aware that some
such operations badly mangle their messages. This is of
particular concern when posting contents of
<filename>Makefiles</filename>, where <literal>tab</literal>
is a significant character. This is a very common,
and very annoying, problem with submissions to the
<ulink url="&url.base;/support.html#gnats">
GNATS Problem Reports database</ulink>.
<filename>Makefiles</filename> with tabs changed to either
spaces, or the annoying <literal>=3B</literal> escape
sequence, create a great deal of aggravation for
committers.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="etiquette-replying">
<para>What are the special etiquette consideration when replying
to an existing posting on the mailing lists?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Please 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>
<para> This is especially important for postings of the type
"yes, I see this too", where the initial posting was dozens
or hundreds of lines.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Use some technique to identify which text came from
the original message, and which text you add. A common
convention is to prepend
<quote><literal>> </literal></quote> to the original
message. Leaving white space after the
<quote><literal>> </literal></quote> and leaving empty
lines between your text and the original text both make
the result more readable.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Please ensure that the attributions of the text
you are quoting is correct. People can become offended
if you attribute words to them that they themselves did
not write.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Please do not <literal>top post</literal>. By this, we
mean that if you are replying to a message, please put your
replies after the text that you copy in your reply.</para>
<!-- note: the question and answer are intentionally
reversed for humorous effect -->
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>A: Because it reverses the logical flow of
conversation.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>(Thanks to Randy Bush for the joke.)</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
</qandaset>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="recurring">
<title>Recurring Topics On The Mailing Lists</title>
<para>Participation in the mailing lists, like participation
in any community, requires a common basis for communication.
Many of the mailing lists presuppose a knowledge of the
Project's history. In particular, there are certain topics
that seem to regularly occur to newcomers to the community.
It is the responsibility of each poster to ensure that
their postings do not fall into one of these categories.
By doing so, you will help the mailing lists to stay on-topic,
and probably save yourself being flamed in the process.</para>
<para>The best method to avoid this is to familiarize yourself
with the <ulink url="http://docs.FreeBSD.org/mail/">
mailing list archives</ulink>,
to help yourself understand the background of
what has gone before. In this, the <ulink
url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/search/search.html#mailinglists">
mailing list search interface</ulink>
is invaluable. (If that method does not yield useful results,
please supplement it with a search with your favorite major
search engine).</para>
<para>By familiarizing yourself with the archives, not only will
you learn what topics have been discussed before, but also how
discussion tends to proceed on that list, who the participants
are, and who the target audience is. These are always good things
to know before you post to any mailing list, not just a &os;
mailing list.</para>
<para>There is no doubt that the archives are quite extensive, and
some questions recur more often than others, sometimes as followups
where the subject line no longer accurately reflects the new content.
Nevertheless, the burden is on you, the poster, to do your homework
to help avoid these recurring topics, and especially the dreaded
<literal>bikeshed</literal>s.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="bikeshed">
<title>What Is A "Bikeshed"?</title>
<para>Literally, a <literal>bikeshed</literal> is a small outdoor
shelter into which one may store one's two-wheeled form of
transportation. However, in &os; parlance, the word is a
derogatory term that refers to any oft-recurring discussion
about a particular subject; in particular, it is most often used
to refer to a topic which has never reached a consensus within
the &os; community, and instead remains controversial. (The
genesis of this term is explained in more detail <ulink
url="&url.books.faq;/misc.html#BIKESHED-PAINTING">
in this document</ulink>). You simply must have a working
knowledge of this concept before posting to any &os; mailing
list.</para>
<para>More generally, a bikeshed is a topic that will tend to
generate immediate meta-discussions and flames if you have
not read up on their past history.</para>
<para>Please help us to keep the mailing lists as useful for as
many people as possible by avoiding bikesheds whenever you can.
Thanks.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="acknowledgments">
<title>Acknowledgments</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>&a.grog;</term>
<listitem>
<para>Original author of most of the material on mailing
list etiquette, taken from the article on <ulink
url="&url.articles.freebsd-questions;/article.html">
How to get best results from the FreeBSD-questions mailing list</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>&a.linimon;</term>
<listitem>
<para>Creation of the rough draft of this FAQ.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect1>
</article>