The Wrong Way To Ask For Help On The Mailing List
... and some people wonder why they're ignored.
Update: I guess the message from the above drawing is not obvious to some readers (I’m such a bad ‘illustrator’ :p), so I’ll try to explain it a bit more…
I’ve been following various open source projects’ mailing list these past 5 years, and from time to time, there’s always some people who send an email with a few short sentences (often in capitals, with lots of typos)… asking for HELP!!!, stating that something doesn’t work, and that it’s an urgent issue.
They need to remember that…
- most people volunteer to participate in those projects, i.e. it’s not their paid job.
- asking for help is ok, asking for HELP!!! is less ok.
- notifying the list that something doesn’t work is not good if you don’t accompany it with more information on what you did, how did you come up with the conclusion, or what sort of investigation you had done.
- if it’s urgent for you, it’s not always urgent for other people. most people won’t suddenly stop whatever they’re doing just to assist your urgent problem.
Mailing list etiquette. How to ask questions the smart way.
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