Hello everyone,
It dawned on me recently that CadSoft used to maintain a list of guidelines
for these newsgroups and that got set aside during the Farnell years. And
currently Autodesk is a bit unclear on their support forum strategy.
So in the interest of helping the new people along, here are a copy of the
old newsgroup guidelines from yesteryear. Obviously the references to
CadSoft are not applicable any more. But the general gist of it is. All
thanks to the internet archive....
Of course I have absolutely no authority to enforce or impose such
guidelines. But in the effort for clear, concise communication these are a
good place to start.
Do post your question to the single most appropriate news group
Do not cross post your message to many groups. If you can't determine which
group is the best, say that in your post, and ask someone to suggest which
group would be better. Posting to the proper news group will usually speed
up the response time to your message.
Stay on topic
When you post a new message or reply to a message ask yourself, "Does the
subject line describe the contents of my message?" If the answer is no, you
probably want to revise your message, modify the subject, or start another
thread.
Sometimes a technical thread will evolve into a friendly chat on some
other, unrelated topic. When the discussion has moved away from the
original topic to the point that it is likely no longer of interest to the
greater community, please move the conversation to e-mail.
Keep quoted text to a minimum
When replying to a message, quote just as much of the original text that a
reader who sees only this reply will get an idea of what this message is
about. Typically older messages will be automatically deleted after a
certain amount of time, so that the original post that started a thread may
no longer be present.
When quoting a previous post, edit out the non-relevant parts of the
message. A good rule of thumb is that there should not be much more quoted
text than new text. Do not re-post an entire message in order to indicate
your agreement.
Do not flame or abuse other users
Do not make personal attacks upon other users. If you disagree with
someone's post, speak to their points and ideas, not to their character.
We encourage users of these news groups to be interesting and informative.
However, do not post anything that is libelous, abusive or hateful, an
invasion of anyone's privacy, harmful to other users, or harmful to the
business interests of CadSoft.
Do not advocate or engage in unlawful activities
Do not use the CadSoft news groups for unlawful purposes. Do not post
anything that encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense,
give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any local, state,
national or international law or regulation.
Do not post copyrighted material without permission of the author
Reply to postings in the news group, not via email
Do not contact users via e-mail unless specifically requested to do so. The
preferred method is via the news group. This makes it possible for other
people to benefit from the answer to your question as well.
In the same vein, do not request that responses be sent to you via e-mail.
The information generated in these news groups is intended to benefit all
parties. If you are asking an on-topic question, the answer to your
question will most likely be of interest to others in the news group.
Do post messages in plain text
These news groups are intended to be open to everyone, to that end messages
should be written to the lowest common denominator with regards to news
readers. Please format your message as plain ASCII text. Every news reader
can handle ASCII text, so to ensure that your question can be answered, or
that your answer is understood, please post text-only messages.
Do not post messages containing HTML
Many older news readers are not able to cope with HTML tags. If you post in
HTML, the text of your message will be lost in a welter of HTML tags, or
will not show up at all. If you read and post messages from a web browser,
ensure that the "Post messages in HTML" option is deselected.
Do not post messages with large attachments
Large files fill up our server more quickly, and are an annoyance for
people who download and read the news groups off-line. If you need to
attach a sample data file to demonstrate a particular problem, keep it as
small as possible.
If you have a file or application that you wish to share, post a message
describing the item, and offer to mail it to interested parties.
Alternatively, make the item available on the web via FTP or HTTP, and
direct interested parties to the associated URL.
Messages found in violation of these guidelines are subject to cancellation
without notice
In case of technical problems with these news groups contact
mailto:newsadmin@cadsoft.de
CadSoft does not necessarily endorse, support, or agree with the opinions
or statements expressed in any of the news groups. Any information placed
online is solely the view of those who post it
These are CadSoft news groups By participating, you grant to CadSoft the
unrestricted right to use, reproduce, modify, translate, display, perform,
transmit and distribute any material you post to a news group in any
present or future medium and for any purpose, including commercial
purposes.
--
James Morrison ~~~ Stratford Digital
http://www.stratforddigital.ca
--
EAGLE support forums at http://www.eaglecentral.ca :: Where the EAGLE community meets.