Re: [PHP] How To Ask Questions - Some List Guidelines
Next thing, please add a reply-to header that has the lists mailing address. This is a topic of debate, and many people (including myself) would urge people to ignore this advice. Mangling mail headers can have bad consequences, and there is very little reason to do so. Yeah, but I think the OP was not talking about mangling headers. The subject was how to ask questions, not how to set up the list server. The question is whether or not a person wants personal replies, I think. -- Joel Rees, programmer, Kansai Systems Group Altech Corporation (Alpsgiken), Osaka, Japan http://www.alpsgiken.co.jp -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
[PHP] How To Ask Questions - Some List Guidelines
Listees, Personally, I'm getting a little annoyed by this, and rather than flame any thread in general, I would like to post this note regarding some guidelines that I believe constitute responsible list posting. Firstly, please refrain from using obscure subjects. Some recent ones that I've spotted are test, help, help, newbie question, why isn't this working. This does not help the other people reading, because it doesn't tell us what you are having trouble with, or wanting help with. The more descriptive your subject is, the better prepared someone will be that answers your email. For example, if your subject is test .. and your question is regarding regular expressions, then someone that doesn't know much about regular expression will read your message, and this is wasting their time. Along the same lines, if you can prepend your subject with the next major subject (like [MySQL]), this will further help. Next thing, please add a reply-to header that has the lists mailing address. This helps when replying, because the message is sent both to the list, and the person who initiated the query. A lot of times, people will reply to a discussion, and the message will not get posted to the list, thus taking away from the discussion aspect of it. If you spot spamming in the list (for example, the Nigerian scams), please don't add to the noise by responding to the list. Almost everyone knows obvious spam, and by responding to it you are just taking away from the PHP questions. Please don't send your messages priority, with attachments, HTML-formatted, or with return-reciept requests. Almost all mail clients mark such messages specifically. For example, prority marked messages are transferred to some other folder, etc. Some mail clients delete messages with attachments, or don't format HTML encoded messages. This doesn't help the people reading, and is considered poor etiquette. Regarding posting questions, most people do not mind an off-topic question occasionally, but please, this is not the support forum for third party applications. If you are going to ask a question that is off-topic to the thread, please post a new message, don't reply and change the the subject line. This is known as hijacking the thread, and it doesn't help the original person who posted the question, and is again considered poor manners. As a general rule, the more well-researched your question is, the better responses you will get. For example, if a form post is not working as expected, adding the relevant code and what you have tried to troubleshoot it will help. In addition, information about your particular PHP environment (mainly your PHP version -- both major and minor version numbers; the version of your web server software and operating system) go a long way in helping others that are trying to help you. I don't mean to anger or offend anyone by this post, I just believe that if we can follow some common guidelines, the quality of the list questions and responses will improve. I always find new techniques to solve problems while reading the list, and trying to toubleshoot someone else's problem also improves my own PHP skills. Since this is slightly off topic, I offer a PHP tip : tip If you are getting index undefined errors with autoglobal arrays (if you use error_reporting(E_ALL)), an easy way to get rid of those is to verify that an index actually holds a value. There are a few ways to do this, but I like : $value = (!empty($_REQUEST['value'])) ? $_REQUEST['value'] : null; This ensures that a value is only set if the index is valid in the array. /tip -- Regards, Burhan Khalid phplist[at]meidomus[dot]com http://www.meidomus.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] How To Ask Questions - Some List Guidelines
--- Burhan Khalid [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Next thing, please add a reply-to header that has the lists mailing address. This is a topic of debate, and many people (including myself) would urge people to ignore this advice. Mangling mail headers can have bad consequences, and there is very little reason to do so. If people want to reply to the sender, they can. If they want to reply to all, they can do that, too. Intelligent mail clients even allow you to reply to list. Mangling the Reply-To header just screws all of this up. It's as annoying as those phone number form fields that automatically tab over. Chris = Become a better Web developer with the HTTP Developer's Handbook http://httphandbook.org/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] How To Ask Questions - Some List Guidelines
Burhan Khalid wrote: Listees, Personally, I'm getting a little annoyed by this, and rather than flame any thread in general, I would like to post this note regarding some guidelines that I believe constitute responsible list posting. Here is a another resource on mailing list etiquette that some might find useful. http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html - Brad -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] How To Ask Questions - Some List Guidelines
Chris Shiflett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Burhan Khalid [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Next thing, please add a reply-to header that has the lists mailing address. This is a topic of debate, and many people (including myself) would urge people to ignore this advice. Mangling mail headers can have bad consequences, and there is very little reason to do so. If people want to reply to the sender, they can. If they want to reply to all, they can do that, too. Intelligent mail clients even allow you to reply to list. Mangling the Reply-To header just screws all of this up. It's as annoying as those phone number form fields that automatically tab over. Chris = Become a better Web developer with the HTTP Developer's Handbook http://httphandbook.org/ You make an interesting point however the problem is people reply to this list using Email, Newsgroup and Web-based clients. The clients don't all put the same information in their headers and they don't all understand the same headers. If it were strictly a newsgroup list or strictly an email list or strictly a web-based list then Yes you would have a valid point. But if the list is to remain open to these different portals then you are going to have to live with the occasional broken thread. Case in point... = ME =... I only recently moved from an Email client to a Newsgroup client to view this list and I had no idea what-so-ever that any of my replies were breaking threads. It was a real eye opener. :-) - Kevin -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] How To Ask Questions - Some List Guidelines
I would like to also say that if one follows some sort of guideline that person is likely to recieve more help (responses). I know that if there are subjects that are vague and emails that contain little information, i tend to delete them. Whereas, if someone takes the time to address the issue, gives supporting information, I am more opt to do the same in my response. -- bigdog -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
