I put this link on the CCP4 web pages some time ago, but it is probably worth repeating:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html I think the crucial insight is that the psychic abilities of developers are often over-estimated :P m On Fri, 2009-07-31 at 10:57 +0100, Kevin Cowtan wrote: > Hi! > > We've had a few program crashes reported to the BB and by email > recently, and working out what is going on can be quite difficult and > time consuming. > > It is useful to consider when writing such a report how interested you > are in receiving a helpful answer. If you just want us to know that our > software isn't perfect, then a message saying 'program X crashes' is > fine (although some of us know that already). If you want to know how to > get the software to work with your data, then you will probably have to > provide a little more information. > > Here's a rough table of how likely you are to get a solution based on > how much information you provide: > > Message:--------------------------Chance of solution: > > It crashes!-----------------------Zero > It crashes with message X---------Slim > Last 20 lines of the logfile------Poor > Whole logfile---------------------Moderate to good > > Of course you might not want to send the whole log file to the bulletin > board. In this case, you can always send a censored or shortened version > to the bulletin board and send more information to any developer who > asks. In the hardest cases, the developer may need access to your data, > which you may or may not be able to provide of course. > > Hope that helps! > Kevin > -- *********************************************************************** * * * Dr. Martyn Winn * * * * STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, Warrington, WA4 4AD, U.K. * * Tel: +44 1925 603455 E-mail: [email protected] * * Fax: +44 1925 603825 Skype name: martyn.winn * * URL: http://www.ccp4.ac.uk/martyn/ * ***********************************************************************
