How to get an answer to your question(s)

[Jeff Nathan <jeff () snort org>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

This message has been posted several times now by Erek.  The Snort 
community must continue to work towards abiding by the guidelines set 
forth below or the lists will suffer.  In the end, a chaotic list may 
only be able to be cleaned up by switching to moderated lists.

Please be respectful of the others on this list when posting.  Erek's 
message follows with the exception of #15 which I added:


Many times on this list (and other lists as well), I see people ask a 
question which generates _no_ responses.  Then in a few days, you see a 
very terse email from the original poster with "Since I got no 
responses, I'm asking again...".  Folks, it's not hard to get a 
response--It's hard to get a useful question!

Here are a few pointers on "How to ask your question and get a useful 
response" for folks on this list (and others).  Don't be scared to 
post! Just try to help _us_ help _you_!

  1)   What OS and version?  Patches?  Service Packs?
  2)   What version of Snort?  Build number?
  3)   Built from tarball or a pre-packaged binary?
  4)   Where did you get the source or binary from?  Main site?  Mirror?
  5)   Don't crosspost.
  6)   Cut and paste error messages.  Don't send the entire Snort 
startup output, just send the error message and the 10-15 lines above 
it.
  7)   Did you search the message archives [0] for your error message, 
or something similar?
  8)   Did you read README, INSTALL, and BUGS inside the tarballs /docs 
directory?
  9)   Did you read the man page?
 10)  Did you read the Online users manual [1]?
 11)  Did you look at the _ENTIRE_ FAQ [2]?
 12)  Did you try Google?
 13)  Did you write an accurate description of the problem?  "When 
starting Snort under a chroot jail, it fails upon opening of the rules 
file."
  14)  Do you realize no one is getting paid for this?  Your boss might 
be yelling at you, but we're (snort-users folks) doing this out of the 
goodness of our hearts so don't yell at us.

  15 ) Do *NOT* set your email account to automatically respond to 
messages you receive from mailing lists if you are going to be away.  
There are thousands of users on this list.  By configuring your email 
account to automatically respond when you are away, you needlessly send 
messages to these people, further clogging up an already stressed email 
infrastructure provided by sourceforge.  Very shortly we will be 
instituting an automated vacation troller.  If your account triggers 
the troller, your account will be set to not receive messages and you 
will be notified.  After returning, you can easily set your account to 
receive messages again using the web interface provided by sourceforge. 
 Failure to be respectful of others under this particular rule will 
result in being removed from the list.

(For some more things 'not to do' have a look at the Snort-Users 
drinking game [3].  It's not mandatory, but it does give you an idea of 
some of the 'not so good' things that are seen on the list.)

Above all:  Check the docs, archives and FAQ first.  You might be able 
to answer your own question right then!  No waiting overnight or over 
the weekend...  :)

Cheers!

- -----
Erek Adams

   "When things get weird, the weird turn pro."   H.S. Thompson

[0]     http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=snort-users&r=1&w=2
[1]     http://www.snort.org/docs/writing_rules/
[2]	http://www.snort.org/docs/FAQ.txt  and in /docs (from the source 
tarball)
[3]     http://www.theadamsfamily.net/~erek/snort/drinking_game.txt



- --
http://cerberus.sourcefire.com/~jeff       (gpg/pgp key id 6923D3FD)
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age
eighteen."   - Albert Einstein
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (Darwin)

iD8DBQE/mVhJEqr8+Gkj0/0RAjwYAKCjXtdojzci3kgyMLM8cWomWuLstwCgmxfJ
evnxuZa4HNBKVyB/ZD88fAk=
=ltIU
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: The SF.net Donation Program.
Do you like what SourceForge.net is doing for the Open
Source Community?  Make a contribution, and help us add new
features and functionality. Click here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/
_______________________________________________
Snort-users mailing list
Snort-users () lists sourceforge net
Go to this URL to change user options or unsubscribe:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/snort-users
Snort-users list archive:
http://www.geocrawler.com/redir-sf.php3?list=snort-users