Hi All,
Sorry to put on the chequered cap again...

Some of you may not be aware that around 700 people receive every message you post. Huge messages eat up bandwidth so please use common sense when posting and replying. Some hints to keep messages manageable AND easy to respond to include:

- reduce requoting when replying.
----Strip out other posters' signature information AND the garbage that Yahoo.com puts at the bottom of messages.
----Strip out all content except the passage or statement to which you are actually responding.
----When someone posts a message with a number of different questions (see below), respond to each question with a separate posting and strip out everything not related to your response. Change the Subject so it fits the content.

- don't post multiple questions in a single email
----follow the one question ~ one email rule and use an appropriate subject. "Problem" etc. are NOT sensible subjects.
----you are far more likely to get early resolution of all of your problems if you split them up. It is characteristic of our lists that we have people who specialise in certain kinds of problems. Expert time is valuable and nobody gets paid for helping you. Make it easy for people to spare the time.

- NEVER post your database schema to the list
----if someone asks to see your schema, send it to him/her privately or upload it to the Files area of the list as a text file

- State your problem intelligently
----as a minimum, include your database + version, your IDE and CPU configuration at the top of EVERY posting
----paste relevant quotes from your log files/monitor dialogs where appropriate but DON'T send entire logs
----don't say "xxxyyy doesn't work" - describe HOW it doesn't work - include text and IDs of error messages

- Don't use long signatures
----for lists and newsgroups, a sig longer than 2 lines is infradig.
----don't include your company's legal warnings (think about it for one moment and consider how silly these are)

- Use a sensible Subject
----Don't use the word BUG unless you know it is a bug
----Try to make the key word of your subject the first word, e.g. "Domains don't work in stored procedures" rather than "Can't get stored procedures to recognise domains"
---Keep it short !!!!!!!!!!

That will do for today. :))

Helen

All for Open and Open for All
InterBase Developer Initiative · http://www.interbase2000.org
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