On Wed, 2006-01-04 at 17:27 +0000, James Wilkinson wrote: > Charles Howse wrote: > > I agree on all 3 steps. I also agree with Craig that verbosity is not a > > good thing when posting for help (so I guess I am wrong when I try to give > > as much information as I think will help).... > > > > However...the more things I've tried before posting leads to a "wordier" > > post when I finally do ask for help if I'm going to try and avoid a bunch of > > "I tried that, it didn't work." > > > > So how do we balance the amount of information we give vs. avoiding > > verbosity vs. "Oh, I see the OP has already tried what I was going to > > suggest." vs. getting the problem solved? > > I'd suggest newspaper-style reporting: include the important stuff > first, and give less important stuff later. > > If you think about the way you read a newspaper, you might scan the > headlines for something that looks interesting. When you find an article > that looks intriguing, you read the first paragraph or so to see if it > does interest you. If it doesn't, you'll either skim the rest or ignore > it. > > So newspapers put the most important stuff first, then put the added > points, *then* go back and tell the story from the beginning. It helps > catch the reader's attention, and doesn't make them read long articles > to see if they're interested. > <rant> If the "journalist" writer is being honest!!! Too often nowdays the headline and the first few paragraphs give the negative point of view and the bottom of the article contain the facts that make it a 'so what' story. </rant> The theory is correct but the facts are often not in journalism. I like your approach and it does fit what i use as well. > It's the same way with reading mailing lists. Mostly, I can tell if I'm > going to be interested in an e-mail from the subject and the first few > lines. I can also tell if I'm likely to respond. If I'm interested, or > I'm likely to respond (maybe I've got a hunch), *then* I'll want to read > the rest to see if my hunch was right. That's when I'll want to know > what else you tried. > > Some of us even sort the mailing list based on keywords in the subject. > > So, for example, I might suggest: > > Headline (subject line): what's wrong > > First paragraph: repeat what's wrong in one or two sentences, including > why you think something is wrong, and what you might expect to happen. > > Next paragraph or so: this is where you go into details about the > problem. This is where it's appropriate to suggest theories. If you > think your troubleshooting has closed off major lines of enquiry (e.g. > "it works under Windows so it's not hardware"), you might mention this > here. If you have particular reasons for suspecting a particular area, > you can say so here. You should also post what you consider to be the > most relevant data. > > Rest of the e-mail: what else you've tried, package / hardware details > (if appropriate). > > James. > -- > E-mail address: james | "!" sez I. And "?". After a few speechless seconds > @westexe.demon.co.uk | I come out with "%^&*". Unless I come up with > | something plausible soon I'm going to run out of > | special characters. -- Ben at lspace.org >
