View Single Post
Old 18th October 2008
Turophile Turophile is offline
Python Wrangler
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 12

I believe this works as long as we remember Weinberg's The Psychology of Computer Programming (or this summary).

It's really a two way street (and without getting bogged down in entry level philosophy and psychology)...

For suggestions see the quote, edits in red...

Originally Posted by jggimi View Post
The Perfect Newbies...
  1. ...Do their homework...

    1. They read the Project's documentation: the FAQ or Handbook. They read it more than once or ask politely for someone to explain what it means.
    2. They read man pages. They follow the SEE ALSO suggestions in man pages to discover additional information or ask politely for someone to explain what it means.
    3. They know how to search the Problem Report database at the Project website, and they do so or will ask politely when the feature is obscured by "standards compliant" web design.
    4. They keep bookmarks to their favorite Project mailing list archives in their browsers. They search the archives frequently.
    5. They know how to use Internet search engines, and use them.
    6. They search daemonforum, too.
    7. They read books. Books on Unix. Books on BSD. That they ask for suggestions on what to read or where to borrow them.
  2. ...Describe their problems...

    1. They describe problem situations as clearly as their knowledge and understanding permits.
    2. They post actual error messages they've seen.
    3. They post the actual commands they used, and the output of those commands that they didn't understand, or that confused them.
    4. They might ask, if it occurs to them, what they should supply for support in debugging.
    5. That they might comply with simple, non-intrusive requests.
    6. That they might politely reply if they feel the request is intrusive to their security.
  3. ...Disclose their situations...

    1. They tell us what architecture they are using.
    2. They tell us what release and flavor they are using.
    3. If they are using a custom kernel, they say so.
    4. They post their dmesg. (This covers c1, c2, and c3, by the way.)
    5. They post the content of applicable configuration files.
    6. They provide "pictures" of their network layouts when applicable.
  4. ...Communicate...

    1. They respect the forum membership, in return.
    2. They understand that this forum is not a Help Desk, and that the people who are trying to help them are volunteers.
    3. They respond to suggestions and recommendations from the people who are trying to help them, letting their helpers know what worked and what didn't.
    4. They post the information helpers request, with redactions of private information, such as public IP addresses (see (c6)).
  5. ...Keep a positive attitude.

    1. They approach each problem as a learning opportunity. "What knowledge do I lack?" rather than "It's broke. Fix it for me."
    2. They expect nothing. They know their helpers are only other BSD users, and that we will refer people to project mailing lists or bug reporting facilities when necessary.
It's a damn good list but the reason(s) for the change(s) are...

Seriously, should toss this around a bit more, work out what the community agrees and push to get a man page included "man newbie" would be fantastic.

And dead seriously, I think it would be an AWESOME boon to the community, even if it was just the BSD community, if OpenBSD and FreeBSD included this in the manual/docs. People NEED to read it. Of course then we'd need the "What makes a perfect helper?" guide too
Reply With Quote