Mailing List Information qmail-patch@jms1.net mailing list John Simpson 2007-12-31 ---------------------------------------- This list exists for the purpose of discussing my combined patch for qmail. Anybody who has questions, suggestions, concerns, bug reports, or other comments about the combined patch, this is the place to do it. This is a two-way discussion list. Any list subscriber is able to send messages to the list address. Any message sent to the list is automatically re-sent to all other subscribers. This is NOT a beginner-level list. Nobody is going to "hold your hand" here, and you will not find "step by step" directions for setting up a server. In particular, THIS IS NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR THE QMAILROCKS LIST, or any other list- especially lists which cater to beginners. This doesn't mean that beginners aren't welcome here- in fact, people who are beginners regarding qmail are especially welcome. However, WE DO EXPECT YOU TO ALREADY KNOW HOW TO ADMINISTER YOUR OWN SERVER. Nobody here is going to teach you how to set up a second IP address for your ethernet card, what the "grep" and "sed" commands are for, or how to configure apache to serve an SSL web site. We do understand that not everybody will know how to read or write C code, but we do expect you to be able to work with the software which is already on your machine. This includes the ability to read and write basic shell scripts, and at least make an honest attempt to read Perl scripts. We're not here to teach you how to use Linux, BSD, or whatever OS you may be using. If it becomes obvious that you don't really know how to administer your server, you will probably be ignored, and possibly be removed from the list. ---------- The Cardinal Rule: You should read, and UNDERSTAND, this web page before posting anything on the list. If you understand this page, most of the other rules you see here will make perfect sense. http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html You are also expected to read the documentation which comes with each of the packages you install on your system, as well as the information on the http://qmail.jms1.net/ web site. You are also expected to make an honest attempt to find answers for yourself, using Google or some other search engine. ---------- Other rules for the list... - All messages MUST BE plain text. Messages which are HTML, RTF, or any other non-text format I may decide to add to the list, will be silently dropped by the list mechanism. - Do not "top-post". If you reply to a message, your response belongs BELOW whatever you're replying to. People naturally read from the top to the bottom. If you try to force them to read from the bottom upward, or even worse, from the middle, down, then up, then down again, most people (myself included) will ignore the message- and probably you along with it. A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? - Trim your replies. If you're replying to just one part of somebody's message, delete the rest of it from your message. Including two full pages of text, and then adding just one or two lines of new content to it, is a waste of everybody's time. - Don't ask the same question over and over again. If you don't get an answer right away, remember that (1) we're all volunteers, you're not paying us to answer your questions and therefore have no right to demand that we answer you immediately; and (2) different people live in different time zones- your daytime may be the middle of the night for somebody else. Give every question a minimum of 48 hours before deciding that nobody is going to answer you. - Do not hijack threads. If you want to ask a new question, start a new thread by using the "compose new message" feature of your MUA. The "reply" button makes your message part of the thread you're replying to, even if you change the subject. Hijacking threads is a quick and easy way to find yourself removed from the list. - When you ask a question, do not try to hide details. This means don't replace any IP addresses or domain names with things like "192.168.x.x" or "209.x.x.114" or "abc.com" or "example.com"... The reason for this is that, when you obscure details like this, there's a very good chance that you are removing information which would help us to debug the problem. In many cases, email server problems end up being caused by DNS issues, and if we can check the actual DNS data being served by the registrars and nameservers involved, we can diagnose the problem and tell you how to solve it more quickly. Also, there is usually no point in trying to hide these kinds of details. Most of them are already available to the public through our DNS data anyway. I usually ignore questions from people who hide details like this... and if I see somebody doing it all the time, I WILL remove them from the list. Basically, if you're going to ask for help, you need to do everything you can to make it easy for people to help you. - If you ask a "yes or no" question, don't be surprised if you get a "yes or no" answer in return. We're not mind readers- if you want to know HOW to do something, I would suggest you ask a question which starts with "How can I ..." instead of "Can I ..." or "Is it possible to ...". - DO NOT set up a "vacation message", "out of office message", or any other kind of autoresponder on any address which is subscribed to the list. If I see any autoresponder messages coming to the list, the responsible address WILL BE REMOVED without any warning. - It is okay for people to mention their availability for consulting services, however the list is not here to be used as an advertising medium. Any offers for consulting services should be moved off-list as quickly as possible (i.e. "Contact me off-list to discuss my doing ___ on a consulting basis.") In particular, do not discuss prices on the list. Also, see http://qmail.jms1.net/consultants.shtml ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Generic mailing list instructions: This list is being managed by ezmlm-idx. The usual ezmlm aliases will work. For example... - To unsubscribe, send a message to: qmail-patch-unsubscribe@jms1.net - To receive a copy of the FAQ, send a message to: qmail-patch-faq@jms1.net - To receive another copy of this document, send a message to: qmail-patch-info@jms1.net - To contact a human being about the list, send a message to: qmail-patch-owner@jms1.net