        How to get best results from the FreeBSD-questions mailing list

  Greg Lehey

   <grog@FreeBSD.org>

   Revision: 43126

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   Last modified on 2013-11-07 by gabor.
   Abstract

   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 maximize the chance that the reader will receive useful replies.

   This document is regularly posted to the FreeBSD-questions mailing list.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

   Table of Contents

   1. Introduction

   2. How to subscribe to FreeBSD-questions

   3. How to unsubscribe from FreeBSD-questions

   4. Should I ask -questions or -hackers?

   5. Before submitting a question

   6. How to submit a question

   7. How to follow up to a question

   8. How to answer a question

1. Introduction

   FreeBSD-questions is a mailing list maintained by the FreeBSD project to
   help people who have questions about the normal use of FreeBSD. Another
   group, FreeBSD-hackers, discusses more advanced questions such as future
   development work.

  Note:

   The term "hacker" has nothing to do with breaking into other people's
   computers. The correct term for the latter activity is "cracker", 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 How To Become A Hacker

   This is a regular posting aimed to help both those seeking advice from
   FreeBSD-questions (the "newcomers"), and also those who answer the
   questions (the "hackers").

   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.

   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.

2. How to subscribe to FreeBSD-questions

   FreeBSD-questions is a mailing list, so you need mail access. Point your
   WWW browser to the information page of the FreeBSD-questions mailing list.
   In the section titled "Subscribing to freebsd-questions" fill in the "Your
   email address" field; the other fields are optional.

  Note:

   The password fields in the subscription form provide only mild security,
   but should prevent others from messing with your subscription. Do not use
   a valuable password as it will occasionally be emailed back to you in
   cleartext.

   You will receive a confirmation message from mailman; follow the included
   instructions to complete your subscription.

   Finally, when you get the "Welcome" message from mailman telling you the
   details of the list and subscription area password, please save it. If you
   ever should want to leave the list, you will need the information there.
   See the next section for more details.

3. How to unsubscribe from FreeBSD-questions

   When you subscribed to FreeBSD-questions, you got a welcome message from
   mailman. In this message, amongst other things, it told you how to
   unsubscribe. Here is a typical message:

 Welcome to the freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list!

 To post to this list, send your email to:

   freebsd-questions@freebsd.org

 General information about the mailing list is at:

   http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions

 If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (e.g., switch to
 or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your
 subscription page at:

 http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/options/freebsd-questions/grog%40lemsi.de

 You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to:

   freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org

 with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the
 quotes), and you will get back a message with instructions.

 You must know your password to change your options (including changing
 the password, itself) or to unsubscribe.  It is:

   12345

 Normally, Mailman will remind you of your freebsd.org mailing list
 passwords once every month, although you can disable this if you
 prefer.  This reminder will also include instructions on how to
 unsubscribe or change your account options.  There is also a button on
 your options page that will email your current password to you.

   From the URL specified in your "Welcome" message you may visit the
   "Account management page" and enter a request to "Unsubscribe" you from
   FreeBSD-questions mailing list.

   A confirmation message will be sent to you from mailman; follow the
   included instructions to finish unsubscribing.

   If you have done this, and you still can not figure out what is going on,
   send a message to <freebsd-questions-request@FreeBSD.org>, and they will
   sort things out for you. Do not send a message to FreeBSD-questions: they
   can not help you.

4. Should I ask -questions or -hackers?

   Two mailing lists handle general questions about FreeBSD,
   FreeBSD-questions and FreeBSD-hackers. In some cases, it is not really
   clear which group you should ask. The following criteria should help for
   99% of all questions, however:

    1. If the question is of a general nature, ask FreeBSD-questions.
       Examples might be questions about installing FreeBSD or the use of a
       particular UNIX(R) utility.

    2. 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
       FreeBSD-questions.

    3. If the question relates to a bug, and you are sure 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 FreeBSD-hackers.

    4. If the question relates to enhancements to FreeBSD, and you can make
       suggestions about how to implement them, then send the message to
       FreeBSD-hackers.

   There are also a number of other specialized mailing lists, for example
   FreeBSD-isp, 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 FreeBSD-isp. 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.

5. Before submitting a question

   You can (and should) do some things yourself before asking a question on
   one of the mailing lists:

     * Try solving the problem on your own. If you post a question which
       shows that you have tried to solve the problem, your question will
       generally attract more positive attention from people reading it.
       Trying to solve the problem yourself will also enhance your
       understanding of FreeBSD, and will eventually let you use your
       knowledge to help others by answering questions posted to the mailing
       lists.

     * Read the manual pages, and the FreeBSD documentation (either installed
       in /usr/doc or accessible via WWW at http://www.FreeBSD.org),
       especially the handbook and the FAQ.

     * Browse and/or search the archives for the mailing list, to see if your
       question or a similar one has been asked (and possibly answered) on
       the list. You can browse and/or search the mailing list archives at
       http://www.FreeBSD.org/mail and
       http://www.FreeBSD.org/search/search.html#mailinglists respectively.
       This can be done at other WWW sites as well, for example at
       http://marc.theaimsgroup.com.

     * Use a search engine such as Google or Yahoo to find answers to your
       question. Google even has a BSD-specific search interface.

6. How to submit a question

   When submitting a question to FreeBSD-questions, consider the following
   points:

     * 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.

     * 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. "FreeBSD
       problem" or "Help" 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.

     * 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.

       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.

       A lot of badly formatted messages come from bad mailers or badly
       configured mailers. The following mailers are known to send out badly
       formatted messages without you finding out about them:

          * Eudora(R)

          * exmh

          * Microsoft(R) Exchange

          * Microsoft(R) Outlook(R)

       Try not to use MIME: a lot of people use mailers which do not get on
       very well with MIME.

     * 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.

     * 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.

     * 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:

          * 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.

          * With any problem which could 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?

            There is a judgement call here, of course, but the output of the
            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.

          * If you get error messages, do not say "I get error messages", say
            (for example) "I get the error message 'No route to host'".

          * If your system panics, do not say "My system panicked", say (for
            example) "my system panicked with the message 'free vnode
            isn't'".

          * 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.

          * 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?

     * A lot of the information you need to supply is the output of programs,
       such as dmesg(8), or console messages, which usually appear in
       /var/log/messages. 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 dmesg(8), redirect the output
       to a file and include that. For example,

 % dmesg > /tmp/dmesg.out

       This redirects the information to the file /tmp/dmesg.out.

     * 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.

   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:

   Example 1. Message 1

 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 you guys tell me what I doing wrong.

   Example 2. Message 2

 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
 "Missing Operating System".

7. How to follow up to a question

   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:

    1. You include the original message text, so people will know what you
       are talking about. Do not forget to trim unnecessary text out, though.

    2. 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.

    3. The message reference numbers in the header will refer to the previous
       message. Some mailers, such as mutt, can thread messages, showing the
       exact relationships between the messages.

8. 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
       will see the question followed by any answers, all together.

       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.

    3. Do you have something to contribute beyond what has already been said?
       In general, "Yeah, me too" 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 "me
       too" answer, you should also include any further relevant information.

    4. 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.

    5. 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 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?".

    6. Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, reply to the sender and
       to FreeBSD-questions. Many people on the FreeBSD-questions are
       "lurkers": 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.

    7. 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.

    8. 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.

    9. 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.

   10. Most mailers change the subject line on a reply by prepending a text
       such as "Re: ". If your mailer does not do it automatically, you
       should do it manually.

   11. If the submitter did not 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 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.

       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.
