Jeff Horn <jrhorn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Reading the list for a short while before posting, it became fairly > obvious to me what was expected in order to receive help. But, since > posting a rant to the mail list only informs people who read the list > of your displeasure, and given that the group most likely to benefit > from your advice are new list members, it might behoove us to post a > clear(er) list of expectations on the org-mode site when we introduce > potential users to the list. > You are right that only the current members get to see the rant. I can save it and repost it at appropriate times in the future. Just kidding. There is a fairly clear list of expectations in section 1.4, Feedback, of the Org manual. And the "How to contribute" page on Worg (http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contribute.php) contains the admonition: ... o you can submit bug reports – Before sending a bug report, make sure you have read this section of Org's manual: Feedback ... Perhaps people asking questions don't think of them as bug reports, but they are: if one cannot find a way to do something, it's a bug: it may be a code bug or a documentation bug - or it may be a user bug. But to figure out which it is, we need information: relevant information to be sure, but complete information as well - as complete as possible. There are also many, many guides on the web on how to ask questions (e.g. http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html). But when push comes to shove, all of that seems to go out the window - at least sometimes. The point is that all of us have asked questions badly and all of us will do it again, no matter what. I overdid the rant (and didn't put any smilies in there), so it came across too harsh, which was not my intention, but apart from that, an occasional rant on the list can serve as a useful reminder about these expectations. But if you have ideas on how to make us all ask smarter questions, I for one, am all ears. Nick PS. BTW, my favorite example of a "minimal example" was something that Bernt Hansen posted a little more than a year ago: an obscure bug that had plagued Org for a while and that was very tricky to reproduce. Bernt came up with a method that involved a minimal .emacs and an .org file and more than a dozen steps - but it was a consistent reproducer of the bug and Carsten had it fixed in no time: a textbook case of an exemplary bug report and an ideal to aspire to! See the thread starting at http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/16970 _______________________________________________ Emacs-orgmode mailing list Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
