ferry@chorus.fr (Ferry de Jong) (01/14/91)
MONTHLY POSTING: Usage of comp.sys.amiga.* and Netiquette This article contains some generic information about the usage of the comp.sys.amiga.* newsgroups. It is posted by me every month in comp.sys.amiga.introduction. Pay attention to the version number of this article. It indicates what kind of changes are made to the contents compared to the previous posting. First number changed: Major changes and/or items added. Second number changed: Minor changes. If you have suggestions about this article, feel free to mail them to me so I can improve this document. You can reach me by e-mail: ferry@chorus.fr or ferry%chorus.fr@mcsun.EU.net I'd like to thank the following people for their contribu- tions: Steve Hayman(sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu) Computer Science Department. Who is the author of a similar article in comp.unix.questions that I used as the basis for this version. DISCLAIMER Use the information in this posting at your own risk and cost. All opinions expressed are mine, not necessarily those of my employer. ----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<---------- Introduction If you have not already read the overall Usenet introductory material posted to "news.announce.newusers", please do. Much of this article overlaps with the common sense guidelines posted there. Should I post my question to the net? Often the answer is "No, you can get an answer a lot faster without posting a question." Before you post, you should try - o Reading the manual for your system. Some day you may encounter the phrase "RTFM", which stands for "Read the fine manual" (except 'F' doesn't really stand for "Fine"). If you ask someone a ques- tion and they tell you to RTFM, it's an indication that you haven't done your homework. o Find a good introductory book on the Amiga. There are plenty of such books available, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble by having one handy and consulting it frequently. o Read the "MONTHLY POSTING: Frequently Asked Questions and Answers" in comp.sys.amiga.introduction as well as the articles in the newsgroup you plan to post your question in. It might be that it is something asked before. Please remember that the comp.sys.amiga.* newsgroups are read by thousands of people around the world, and that posting a question to this group will cost a lot of time and money by the time your article is distributed to Japan, Australia, Europe (including the Soviet Union), Africa, Israel, and all corners of North America. Also, some people receive these newsgroups as part of a mailing list rather than a newsgroup. If you're one of these people, please don't send a "Remove me from this list" or "UNSUBSCRIBE" message to the wrong place. Take the time to figure out where you're getting this stuff from, and send your request to the mailing list maintainer, *not* to the list or newsgroup itself! Ask your local postmaster for help. To which newsgroup should I post my question? The choice of newsgroup is harder than you might expect. There are over ten newsgroups that deal with amiga related subjects. To find out which newsgroup is the best one to post your question in you can read the Monthly Posting called "MONTLY POSTING: Amiga newsgroups under comp.sys.amiga.*" in which a list is given of all major amiga related groups with an explanation of what kind of questions go there. What information should I include? It's hard to include all the relevant information. If you have a prob- lem and are posting an article, please be sure to mention: o A descriptive subject line. Many people will decide whether to read your article solely on the basis of the subject line, so it should be a good statement of your problem. NOT GOOD GOOD "Help" "How do I restore a corrupted floppy disk?" "DPaint question" "DPaint III can't save file on Hard-Disk" o What computer you are using, with what add on's, and what specific version of the operating system it uses. For example, - Amiga 1000, ALF 20MBytes HardDisk (ST- 225+OMTI RLL), Kickstart V1.2, Workbench V1.2 o If possible, the *exact* text of any error message you may have encountered. WRONG "I can't save file" RIGHT "When I click "Save as..." in DPaint III, and type HD0:german-a".pic in the file line of the SAVE requester, I get: Can't save file, illegal character in filename. What does this mean? It isn't in the UserManual. This is using an AMIGA 2000 with Kickstart V1.3 and Workbench V1.0" It's a good idea to post unrelated questions in separate articles, so that people can keep different discussions separate. It's also a *very* good idea to include a line or two like this: "Please mail your answers to me and I'll summarize what I get and post the results to comp.sys.amiga.graphics" using the ti- tle: "SUMMARY: DPaint III can't save file on Hard-Disk" This prevents many identical responses from different users to the same question from clogging up the newsgroup. And make sure you really sum- marize what you get - don't just concatenate all the mail you've re- ceived, be selective. It's also a good idea to read comp.sys.amiga.* for at least a couple of weeks after you post your article to see what followup articles are posted. Should I post an answer to a question? It's very tempting to post an answer to a question you read on the net, especially when you think "Aha, finally - a question I can answer!" Con- sider though that when a simple question is asked, such as the sort about to be answered below, many other people around the world already know the answer and may be posting their own reply. In order to avoid dozens of replies to simple questions, please wait a day or so and see if anyone else has already answered the question. If you have something special to contribute, please do so, but make sure you're not duplicat- ing something someone else has already done. You should feel free to reply to any question by e-mail. Even if the user gets 200 responses to his question, at least the load on the rest of the net is minimized. What about those people who continue to ask stupid or frequently asked questions in spite of the frequently asked questions document? Just send them a polite e-mail message, possibly referring them to this document. There is no need to flame them on the net - it's busy enough as it is. ----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<---------- ___ ___ ___ ___ _ _ _ _ ( _)( _)( ,) ( ,)( \/ )|( \/\/ )riting software takes twice as long ) _) ) _) ) \ ) \ \ / | \ / as you expect it to take... (_) (___)(_)\_)(_)\_)(_/ | \/\/ Even if you keep this in mind! e-mail: ferry@chorus.fr or ferry%chorus.fr@mcsun.EU.net