The Answer Gang's Posting Guidelines

by Ben Okopnik
with extra tidbits by Heather Stern, "The Editor Gal"

The Answer Gang is a mailing list run by the Linux Gazette. When you send us a question, it is presented to all the members of the list, and may be answered by any of them - or not. We are a bunch of volunteers, each with their own interests and abilities; whether you get answered or not depends on how well you engage and match both of those. There are no guarantees of any sort - but people who pose interesting questions, especially those of broad scope (i.e., those that would be of interest to more than just one or two people), as well as folks who are pleasant, polite, and have a sense of humor are not likely to be ignored. Spammers and flamers will be either ignored, laughed at, and/or lampooned (a number of the Gangsters have a wicked sense of humor.)

The following material describes the things that you need to do when posting to TAG in order to maximize the chances of getting meaningful replies to your inquiry. This should also prevent you from getting laughed at for being lazy and trying to have others do work that you yourself should be doing. It draws heavily on Tad McClellan's "Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc"

and the "Netiquette Guidelines" RFC
<http://andrew2.andrew.cmu.edu/rfc/rfc1855.html>

BEFORE POSTING

• You Must
  - Check the LG and TAG FAQs to see if they contain an answer to your question
  - Check the list of HOWTOs for anything relevant - these offer detailed coverage of many Linux tasks
   
• You Really, Really Should
  - Search previous issues of LG for relevant answers
   
• If You Like
  - Check Other Resources (books, Google!/Linux, etc.)

As you would expect, The Answer Gang's discussions are usually technical in nature; hence, there is a strong need to observe conventions for conduct in these discussions. Following the guidelines set out below will save time and effort for everyone involved, and will make answering your question much more convenient - which would also make it more likely to be answered. There can be hundreds of messages in TAG in any given month, and we all must decide somehow which ones we are going to answer. Your post is in competition with all the other posts. You need to "win" before a person who can help you will even try. Here is how to win the "TAG lottery":

POSTING TO TAG

• Question should be about Linux, or of interest to Linux community
  The Linux Gazette has a rather obvious and clearly stated purpose; our target readership is the Linux community. We may post humorous pieces, or "spam slams", or other non-Linux content - but in general, The Answer Gang is here to answer Linux-specific questions. We don't usually give out advice on cooking rhubarb, passing tests in American history, or making your Wind*ws program work...  actually, we have done all of those in the past, but relying on it would be just plain silly. Confine your questions to Linux-specific or Linux-related content.
   
• Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
  You have 40 precious characters of Subject in which to make your first impression. Spend them indicating what problem we can expect to find in your query. Don't waste them indicating "experience level" (guru, newbie...) Don't waste them pleading (please read, urgent, help!...) Don't waste them on non-subjects ("Linux question", "Could I ask a question?"...) Part of the beauty of Net forum dynamics is that you can contribute to the community with your very first post! If your choice of subject leads a fellow searcher to find the thread you are starting, then even asking a question helps us all.
   
• Beware of saying "doesn't work"
  This is a "red flag" phrase, one that gives no useful information and tends to annoy the people who are trying to help you. If you find yourself writing that, pause and see if you can't describe what is not working without saying "doesn't work". That is, describe how it is not what you want. Try to explain the problem to another person using only words (i.e., don't show it to them - just describe it.) If they can understand what you mean, write down the explanation you used and send it to us!
   
• Use an effective follow-up style
  When composing a follow-up, quote only enough text to establish the context for the comments that you're going to add. Don't quote the entire article; instead, intersperse your comments following the sections of quoted text that your comments apply to. Failure to do this is called "Jeopardy" posting because the answer comes before the question. Reversing the chronology of the dialog (putting your response before the quoted text) makes it much harder to read and understand; some people won't even bother reading a post written that way (the same goes for "h4x0r"-style postings from "k3wL d00dZ".) For more information on quoting and follow-up style, see <http://www.geocities.com/nnqweb/nquote.html>
   
• Provide enough, but not too much information
  (Heather Stern "The EditorGal"'s addendum, with modifications)
  Too Much Info: Where you bought the computer and whether you still have a receipt. What color the case is. Your passwords or anything else you wouldn't discuss in the bookstore or at a picnic.
  Not Enough Info: "So I plugged everything in but it doesn't work."

  Questions whose answers (from you) would give us enough to run with:
       Plugged what in?
       What did you expect to happen?
       What did it do instead?
       What were the exact error messages?
       What have you changed since then?
       Where does Linux come into the puzzle? (feel free to guess)
       Which Linux flavor?
       Which version of the problem software package (you did upgrade to the latest one, right?) are you using?
   

• Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME

Email is a text only medium, and plain text is something that any mail program can read. Don't post Word documents, vcards, HTML, or MIME (MS Outlook does this by default; here are the instructions for turning that off). Many people will not be able to easily read your post, and thus will not bother. Binary attachments sent to The Answer Gang are thrown into the trash basket without even a glance. HTML-formatted e-mail is completely ignored by some of our members and is tolerated by others, but is definitely a negative influence. Unnecessary MIME encoding (it can be useful in preserving your language's character set, but mail to TAG in a language other than English is very rare) carries the same penalties as using HTML.
 
• Remove any "confidential" notices, whether in your .signature or added by your company's mailer (asking for your name not to be posted is OK)

Published answers benefit the entire community; this is what we do here in TAG. If you have a "This is to be kept confidential" blurb in your post, forget about having it answered: it just isn't going to happen. Don't expect people to do one-on-one problem resolution unless you're willing to pay for it. If your company automatically glues a "confidential" tag to all your e-mail, either e-mail us from home or preface your question with an explicit permission for us to publish. In fact, here's one you can simply copy and paste:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hereby give my explicit permission for the Linux Gazette to publish the
material in this e-mail, as well as all future responses or discussion that
result from it. This notice supersedes any and all previous restrictions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


(Heather Stern "The EditorGal"'s addendum)
If you know that it includes some sort of message about who it's intended for, you can make that more clear. This example asks for anonymizing...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The intended recipient of this message is the readership of the world wide
webzine "Linux Gazette".  Any responses or discussion with the Answer Gang
or any LG editor may be published worldwide.  Please don't reveal my last 
name, email address, or company.  
....This notice supersedes any and all other attached restrictions.   Thanks!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that we normally hide your company anyway, unless you are with a company that helps maintain the application being discussed. But email addresses are normally shown with Tips, in case the readers have any comments.

If you have read and followed all of the above guidelines, go ahead and send your question to [email protected]. You've already done one of The Right Things by reading these guidelines; presumably, you've already done more than one Right Thing by following the above recommendations. If you still haven't found an answer, it should be an interesting question indeed - and we'll be glad to hear from you!