           Frequently Asked Questions About The FreeBSD Mailing Lists

  The FreeBSD Documentation Project

   Revision: 6aca3befe5

   Copyright (c) 2004-2005 The FreeBSD Documentation Project

   Last modified on 2018-07-12 22:45:00 +0000 by Jason Helfman.
   Abstract

   This is the FAQ for the FreeBSD mailing lists. If you are interested in
   helping with this project, send email to the FreeBSD documentation project
   mailing list. The latest version of this document is always available from
   the FreeBSD World Wide Web server. It may also be downloaded as one large
   HTML file with HTTP or as plain text, PostScript, PDF, etc. from the
   FreeBSD FTP server. You may also want to Search the FAQ.

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   Table of Contents

   1. Introduction

   2. Mailing List Etiquette

   3. Recurring Topics On The Mailing Lists

   4. What Is A "Bikeshed"?

   5. Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

   As is usual with FAQs, this document aims to cover the most frequently
   asked questions concerning the FreeBSD mailing lists (and of course answer
   them!). Although originally intended to reduce bandwidth and avoid the
   same old questions being asked over and over again, FAQs have become
   recognized as valuable information resources.

   This document attempts to represent a community consensus, and as such it
   can never really be authoritative. However, if you find technical errors
   within this document, or have suggestions about items that should be
   added, please either submit a PR, or email the FreeBSD documentation
   project mailing list. Thanks.

   1.1. What is the purpose of the FreeBSD mailing lists?

   1.2. Who is the audience for the FreeBSD mailing lists?

   1.3. Are the FreeBSD mailing lists open for anyone to participate?

   1.4. How can I subscribe?

   1.5. How can I unsubscribe?

   1.6. Are archives available?

   1.7. Are mailing lists available in a digest format?

   1.1. What is the purpose of the FreeBSD mailing lists?                     
        The FreeBSD mailing lists serve as the primary communication channels 
        for the FreeBSD community, covering many different topic areas and    
        communities of interest.                                              
   1.2. Who is the audience for the FreeBSD mailing lists?                    
        This depends on charter of each individual list. Some lists are more  
        oriented to developers; some are more oriented towards the FreeBSD    
        community as a whole. Please see this list for the current summary.   
   1.3. Are the FreeBSD mailing lists open for anyone to participate?         
        Again, this depends on charter of each individual list. Please read   
        the charter of a mailing list before you post to it, and respect it   
        when you post. This will help everyone to have a better experience    
        with the lists.                                                       
                                                                              
        If after reading the above lists, you still do not know which mailing 
        list to post a question to, you will probably want to post to         
        freebsd-questions (but see below, first).                             
                                                                              
        Also note that the mailing lists have traditionally been open to      
        postings from non-subscribers. This has been a deliberate choice, to  
        help make joining the FreeBSD community an easier process, and to     
        encourage open sharing of ideas. However, due to past abuse by some   
        individuals, certain lists now have a policy where postings from      
        non-subscribers must be manually screened to ensure that they are     
        appropriate.                                                          
   1.4. How can I subscribe?                                                  
        You can use the Mailman web interface to subscribe to any of the      
        public lists.                                                         
   1.5. How can I unsubscribe?                                                
        You can use the same interface as above; or, you can follow the       
        instructions that are at the bottom of every mailing list message     
        that is sent.                                                         
                                                                              
        Please do not send unsubscribe messages directly to the public lists  
        themselves. First, this will not accomplish your goal, and second, it 
        will irritate the existing subscribers, and you will probably get     
        flamed. This is a classical mistake when using mailing lists; please  
        try to avoid it.                                                      
   1.6. Are archives available?                                               
        Yes. Threaded archives are available here.                            
   1.7. Are mailing lists available in a digest format?                       
        Yes. See the Mailman web interface.                                   

2. Mailing List Etiquette

   Participation in the mailing lists, like participation in any community,
   requires a common basis for communication. Please make only appropriate
   postings, and follow common rules of etiquette.

   2.1. What should I do before I post?

   2.2. What constitutes an inappropriate posting?

   2.3. What is considered proper etiquette when posting to the mailing
   lists?

   2.4. What are the special etiquette consideration when replying to an
   existing posting on the mailing lists?

   2.1. What should I do before I post?                                       
        You have already taken the most important step by reading this        
        document. However, if you are new to FreeBSD, you may first need to   
        familiarize yourself with the software, and all the social history    
        around it, by reading the numerous books and articles that are        
        available. Items of particular interest include the FreeBSD           
        Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document, the FreeBSD Handbook, and  
        the articles How to get best results from the FreeBSD-questions       
        mailing list, Explaining BSD, and FreeBSD First Steps.                
                                                                              
        It is always considered bad form to ask a question that is already    
        answered in the above documents. This is not because the volunteers   
        who work on this project are particularly mean people, but after a    
        certain number of times answering the same questions over and over    
        again, frustration begins to set in. This is particularly true if     
        there is an existing answer to the question that is already           
        available. Always keep in mind that almost all of the work done on    
        FreeBSD is done by volunteers, and that we are only human.            
   2.2. What constitutes an inappropriate posting?                            
          * Postings must be in accordance with the charter of the mailing    
            list.                                                             
                                                                              
          * Personal attacks are discouraged. As good net-citizens, we should 
            try to hold ourselves to high standards of behavior.              
                                                                              
          * Spam is not allowed, ever. The mailing lists are actively         
            processed to ban offenders to this rule.                          
   2.3. What is considered proper etiquette when posting to the mailing       
        lists?                                                                
          * Please wrap lines at 75 characters, since not everyone uses fancy 
            GUI mail reading programs.                                        
                                                                              
          * Please respect the fact that bandwidth is not infinite. Not       
            everyone reads email through high-speed connections, so if your   
            posting involves something like the content of config.log or an   
            extensive stack trace, please consider putting that information   
            up on a website somewhere and just provide a URL to it. Remember, 
            too, that these postings will be archived indefinitely, so huge   
            postings will simply inflate the size of the archives long after  
            their purpose has expired.                                        
                                                                              
          * Format your message so that it is legible, and PLEASE DO NOT      
            SHOUT!!!!!. Do not underestimate the effect that a poorly         
            formatted mail message has, and not just on the FreeBSD mailing   
            lists. Your mail message is all that people see of you, and if it 
            is poorly formatted, badly spelled, full of errors, and/or has    
            lots of exclamation points, it will give people a poor impression 
            of you.                                                           
                                                                              
          * Please use an appropriate human language for a particular mailing 
            list. Many non-English mailing lists are available.               
                                                                              
            For the ones that are not, we do appreciate that many people do   
            not speak English as their first language, and we try to make     
            allowances for that. It is considered particularly poor form to   
            criticize non-native speakers for spelling or grammatical errors. 
            FreeBSD has an excellent track record in this regard; please,     
            help us to uphold that tradition.                                 
                                                                              
          * Please use a standards-compliant Mail User Agent (MUA). A lot of  
            badly formatted messages come from bad mailers or badly           
            configured mailers. The following mailers are known to send out   
            badly formatted messages without you finding out about them:      
                                                                              
               * exmh                                                         
                                                                              
               * Microsoft(R) Exchange                                        
                                                                              
               * Microsoft(R) Outlook(R)                                      
                                                                              
            Try not to use MIME: a lot of people use mailers which do not get 
            on very well with MIME.                                           
                                                                              
          * Make sure your time and time zone are set correctly. This may     
            seem a little silly, since your message still gets there, but     
            many of the people on these mailing lists get several hundred     
            messages a day. They frequently sort the incoming messages by     
            subject and by date, and if your message does not come before the 
            first answer, they may assume that they missed it and not bother  
            to look.                                                          
                                                                              
          * A lot of the information you need to supply is the output of      
            programs, such as dmesg(8), or console messages, which usually    
            appear in /var/log/messages. Do not try to copy this information  
            by typing it in again; not only it is a real pain, but you are    
            bound to make a mistake. To send log file contents, either make a 
            copy of the file and use an editor to trim the information to     
            what is relevant, or cut and paste into your message. For the     
            output of programs like dmesg, redirect the output to a file and  
            include that. For example,                                        
                                                                              
         % dmesg > /tmp/dmesg.out                                             
                                                                              
            This redirects the information to the file /tmp/dmesg.out.        
                                                                              
          * When using cut-and-paste, please be aware that some such          
            operations badly mangle their messages. This is of particular     
            concern when posting contents of Makefiles, where tab is a        
            significant character. This is a very common, and very annoying,  
            problem with submissions to the Problem Reports database.         
            Makefiles with tabs changed to either spaces, or the annoying =3B 
            escape sequence, create a great deal of aggravation for           
            committers.                                                       
   2.4. What are the special etiquette consideration when replying to an      
        existing posting on the mailing lists?                                
          * Please include relevant text from the original message. Trim it   
            to the minimum, but do not overdo it. It should still be possible 
            for somebody who did not read the original message to understand  
            what you are talking about.                                       
                                                                              
            This is especially important for postings of the type "yes, I see 
            this too", where the initial posting was dozens or hundreds of    
            lines.                                                            
                                                                              
          * Use some technique to identify which text came from the original  
            message, and which text you add. A common convention is to        
            prepend "> " to the original message. Leaving white space after   
            the "> " and leaving empty lines between your text and the        
            original text both make the result more readable.                 
                                                                              
          * Please ensure that the attributions of the text you are quoting   
            is correct. People can become offended if you attribute words to  
            them that they themselves did not write.                          
                                                                              
          * Please do not top post. By this, we mean that if you are replying 
            to a message, please put your replies after the text that you     
            copy in your reply.                                               
                                                                              
               * A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.     
                                                                              
               * Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?                          
                                                                              
            (Thanks to Randy Bush for the joke.)                              

3. Recurring Topics On The Mailing Lists

   Participation in the mailing lists, like participation in any community,
   requires a common basis for communication. Many of the mailing lists
   presuppose a knowledge of the Project's history. In particular, there are
   certain topics that seem to regularly occur to newcomers to the community.
   It is the responsibility of each poster to ensure that their postings do
   not fall into one of these categories. By doing so, you will help the
   mailing lists to stay on-topic, and probably save yourself being flamed in
   the process.

   The best method to avoid this is to familiarize yourself with the mailing
   list archives, to help yourself understand the background of what has gone
   before. In this, the mailing list search interface is invaluable. (If that
   method does not yield useful results, please supplement it with a search
   with your favorite major search engine).

   By familiarizing yourself with the archives, not only will you learn what
   topics have been discussed before, but also how discussion tends to
   proceed on that list, who the participants are, and who the target
   audience is. These are always good things to know before you post to any
   mailing list, not just a FreeBSD mailing list.

   There is no doubt that the archives are quite extensive, and some
   questions recur more often than others, sometimes as followups where the
   subject line no longer accurately reflects the new content. Nevertheless,
   the burden is on you, the poster, to do your homework to help avoid these
   recurring topics.

4. What Is A "Bikeshed"?

   Literally, a bikeshed is a small outdoor shelter into which one may store
   one's two-wheeled form of transportation. However, in FreeBSD parlance,
   the term refers to topics that are simple enough that (nearly) anyone can
   offer an opinion about, and often (nearly) everyone does. The genesis of
   this term is explained in more detail in this document. You simply must
   have a working knowledge of this concept before posting to any FreeBSD
   mailing list.

   More generally, a bikeshed is a topic that will tend to generate immediate
   meta-discussions and flames if you have not read up on their past history.

   Please help us to keep the mailing lists as useful for as many people as
   possible by avoiding bikesheds whenever you can. Thanks.

5. Acknowledgments

   Greg Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org>

           Original author of most of the material on mailing list etiquette,
           taken from the article on How to get best results from the
           FreeBSD-questions mailing list.

   Mark Linimon <linimon@FreeBSD.org>

           Creation of the rough draft of this FAQ.
