List ettiquette (was Re: [Asterisk-Users] Grandstream Source?)

[Alastair Maw]

PJ Welsh wrote:

 > This */IVR/VOIP/Telephony stuff is only easy when you get to *REALY*
 > know it. I am not there! I know my GNU/Linux systems... I don't know
 > this... please be nice to me atleast ;)

I am nice. :)

The point of that tongue-in-cheek e-mail was that hopefully Senad will 
type the single obvious word into Google next time before he wastes 
hundreds of people's time (albeit only 5 seconds each) with questions he 
can answer for himself very very easily.

VoIP is complex. PSTN systems are complex. But using Google isn't. If 
someone points out that Company Xyzzy sells a product/service, I can't 
imagine why anybody would even bother asking a mailing list about it, 
rather than just going straight to Google and searching for Xyzzy.

If you have a genuine problem, the list is friendly and nice. If someone 
can't be bothered to type a single and specific word into Google, and 
it's very obvious they haven't made an attempt to think/look for 
themselves, then it's hardly surprising that most people have little 
patience for them.

So, as a reference for all you people who get burnt when posting to the 
list, here is a guide:

  - Ask a new question by clicking the "new"/"compose" button in your
    mail client. Only hit reply if you are actually replying. In
    particular, don't hit reply, delete the whole of the subject line,
    and attempt to start a new thread this way. Stephen will flame you,
    and the rest of us with threaded mail readers will silently sit and
    seethe quietly in a corner (or miss it altogether, having marked that
    thread as uninteresting/irrelevant/don't know anything about it).

  - Don't post in HTML/RTF. Basically, it holds no advantage over plain
    text, and has many disadvantages (size, accessibility, etc, etc.)

  - Use Google if you think the question might be obvious. In particular,
    search like so to look in the list archives (e.g.):
      site:lists.digium.com SIP H323 gateway

  - If you can't find it after five minutes of looking, but still worry
    that it's quite an easy obvious question, everyone will like you lots
    if you say things like "It's probably quite easy, but I can't find
    anything on Google about it unless I'm being blind..."

And that's about it, really. Simple, see?

-- 
Alastair Maw
MX Telecom - Systems Analyst
http://www.mxtelecom.com