On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 01:01:00PM -0500, davidu wrote:
> Charles, I agree with you here. I don't agree when you are always so harsh
> to people, but I understand why you are. Is there a way to send a "welcome"
> message when people subscribe that tells them this in nice big CAPS LOCKS or
> something.
Well, most people who install qmail probably got it from cr.yp.to, Dan's
site. On that site is a prominent link to the FAQ. Many of the people
who act so wounded when told to "do their homework" first claim that
they've already read all the documentation, including the FAQ.
If that's the case, then they've seen the following:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
What should I do if I have trouble with qmail?
Answer: Read the documentation! Most questions are answered by
- this list of frequently asked questions;
- the qmail pictures, which show how qmail handles various types of
messages;
- the other how-to pages in /var/qmail/doc; and
- the qmail manual pages in /var/qmail/man/cat*.
Your system includes a wide variety of monitoring tools to show you what
qmail is doing:
- the qmail log, as introduced in /var/qmail/doc/TEST.*;
- instcheck (in the qmail install directory), which looks for
installation problems;
- qmail-showctl, which explains your current configuration;
- dot-forward -n (if you have installed dot-forward), which lets you
see how a .forward file will be interpreted;
- fastforward -n (if you have installed fastforward), which lets you
see how a forwarding table will be interpreted;
- ps, which lets you see what processes are running;
- recordio (if you have installed ucspi-tcp) and tcpdump, which let
you see what data is flowing over a TCP connection; and
- a syscall tracing tool, trace or truss or strace or ktrace, which
lets you see exactly how a program is interacting with the system.
If all else fails, you could try asking for help on the qmail mailing
list. Your message should give complete answers to the following three
questions:
1.What exactly did you do?
2.What exactly did the computer do?
3.What exactly did you expect the computer to do?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
And there it is, plain as day. I don't think that people would be any
more likely to read it if it were in the introductory mailing list
message, as evidenced by the fact that large numbers of these same
people can't even figure out how to unsubscribe. *That* much, at least
is in the introductory message.
The only other solution I can think of is to travel to each of these
people's homes and staple the above to their foreheads. This, for
obvious reasons (the cost of travel), is not going to happen.
And so we continue to suffer and to suggest that they read the docs
before asking the same question at 50 or 100 other people have in the
last year.
For the record, the above quote is located at
http://cr.yp.to/qmail/faq/solutions.html#education
and can be reached from the FAQ index by looking for the heading:
"How to solve problems"
Tim
--
* * * | 1) It's SLOW! --> "man tcpserver" - especially -R,-H,-l
qmail | 2) Roaming users --> http://www.lifewithqmail.org/lwq.html#relaying
FAQS | 3) Secondary MX --> list in rcpthosts, NOT in locals/virtualdomains
* * * | 4) Discard mail --> "#" line ONLY, in appropriate .qmail file
