Writing smart and reasonable postings or How-to use a mailinglist
Postings/questions on mailinglists are often of a poor quality or lack significant information.
If you have a problem with a particular product or when you encounter a
sudden problem you should always include the following information with
a posting:
- The full Python traceback (to be found in the ZMI
of your Plone site under error_log). An excerpt is usually
not sufficient and not very
helpful for people trying to help you.
Comments like "my app crashed" without further informations are just
worthless.
- Include full version information about the used Python, Zope and Plone version
- Include information about the operation
system and/or distribution
- Give a reasonable and detailed description of the problem
- Try to include all important information with your first posting. Don't let the people willing to help ask a bunch of times back to get the relevant information. This is time-consuming both for the asker and the person trying to help
- Use self-speaking subjects. Postings with subjects like "Help need", "Newbie advice needed" or "Urgent..." have a good chance to be ignored. Subjects are used to filter out what to read and what not. If you want to attract a reader to your posting then you should use a subject that tells the reader "hey, this might be something I am interested in" or "hey, I know about this topic...let me read it". Consider reading "How to ask questions the smart way".
- Bring your issue to the point. Be smart.
- Don't try to tell page-long stories. Short and precise postings have a better chance to get answered than long verbose postings.
- Don't crosspost the same question to multiple
lists. This will only annoy people willing to help. Cross-postings are
unwanted since the early days of the internet and the Usenet.
- Don't repost the same posting within a short period of time. A mailinglist is not a helpdesk with a guranteed response time.Questions are being answered on a voluntary basis.
- Don't create a new thread for replies to an existing thread. Create
a new thread for new issues only.
- If you reply to a posting, quote properly. Only include the text from a former posting that is necessary to understand your follow-up. Adding a one-line reply to 10KB quote is just annoying and time-consuming for the reader. Keep followups short and readable. See also How do I quote correctly in Usenet.
- Post to the right list. The plone-users
mailinglist is the right place for every question how
to work and develop with Plone. The plone-developers
list is right place for discussions of the development
of Plone itself. It is not appropriate to post
questions to unrelated lists (e.g. posting questions sent to
the plone-cvs list which is used for CVS checkin notifications
only).
- Avoid to urge the reader. "I have a deadline by tomorrow....I need urgent help" is something that might be repelling to the reader.
- Reply always to the mailinglist. Keep the discussion on the
mailinglist. Don't try to discuss issues in private with a
core developer. Issues are usually of interest for the public so any
discussion should happen in public. General requests being sent in
private to core developers (if they are not directly related to their
own products and work) can be considered to be offensive. People will
pick up your issue if they have time, interest and motivation.
Urging someone in private with general issues is in general a
bad idea. Don't do that.