ColdFusion-Talk - How to *Not* Get Flamed!

 
Mar 13, 2000
by Rey Bango and Michael Dinowitz

This article reprinted with permission from CFNewbie.com. Copyright 2000 CFNewbie.com

Starting off with a new development can be a pretty arduous. At one point or another, we?ve all had to take that big leap of faith and embrace a product that will guide our careers accordingly. With so much depending on this decision, you?re going to need to ensure that you stay on top of the latest and greatest happenings in the community. You?re also going to want to take advantage of all support resources available. That?s where the CF-Talk list comes in. Originally founded by Mike Tacalofsky, and now managed by Michael Dinowitz, the list has become one of the top information exchange vehicles in the ColdFusion community. With an average of 150 posts a day and close to 1,500 subscribers, suffice it to say that someone on the list will have "been there and done that".

Subscribing to the CF-Talk List

Getting involved in the list is a pretty straightforward process. The main thing that you need to have is a valid email address. When you?re ready to sign-up, just shoot on over to the House of Fusion (http://www.houseoffusion.com). You'll find plenty of interesting reading at this ColdFusion webzine, as well as several other mailing lists that you can join.

The CF-Talk list sign-up form can be reached by clicking in the "mailing list" navigation option on the left-hand side of the site. Now, you?re going to see a ton of available mailing lists, but let's stay focused on the CF-Talk option. Go ahead and click on the CF-Talk navigation option. You?ll see a new page appear that?ll prompt you for your email address. Go ahead and enter it. Don?t worry about spam. Michael [Dinowitz] absolutely hates it and actually prohibits the delivery of spam via the list.

You?ll have three modes of delivery to choose from. Immediate Delivery will send a newly posted message to your inbox as soon as it's been received by the talk list?s mail server. For the most part, it?s pretty quick. About the only delays I?ve ever seen is when someone has decided to post a rather large attachment to the group or a CF vs. ASP discussion erupts. ;0)

Digest is great if you don?t want to be blasted with 100+ emails per day. This option will basically send you one big text-based email message that contains the contents of all of the other emails sent to the list.

Finally, if you ever want to stop receiving list messages, just choose the Unsubscribe option.

Once you?ve entered your email address, chosen your method of delivery and clicked on the "Submit" button, you should receive an email asking you to reply to it with specific text in the body. Be sure to reply to this email or you won?t be fully subscribed. This mechanism ensures that a valid email address actually exists and that *you* actually chose to subscribe to the list.

CF-Talk List Guidelines

Most of the guidelines that I?ll list below are available on the House of Fusion guide, and some are simply plagiarized (with Michael?s permission, of course). You should definitely read the version posted at the House of Fusion to ensure that you stay clean on the list.

Keep in mind that the CF-Talk list is a user-supported facility and is not an official resource of Allaire Corporation, nor should it be seen as one. As such, certain rules do apply and should be observed by every good list citizen. It?ll definitely help you avoid being flamed!

Don't hesitate to post your detailed questions and answers, event announcements, and product descriptions to the list. The key is to ensure that the topic is ColdFusion-related, and that your topic is clearly defined in your subject line. Remember that you have thousands of other list citizens that will be receiving your email. I don?t know of many that would be too happy to receive notice of the new gamer site you just found ... unless, of course, it was written in ColdFusion! ;)

Some things to specifically avoid are:

  • Pricing Discussions

    This topic comes up from time to time and, in my opinion, is best left in private email. Your hourly rate and your salary is your business, not the list?s. If you?d like to share it or if you?d like to get an idea of how much to charge for your services, there are plenty of sites on the web that can help you with that.

    In addition, talking about pricing can be illegal. Check out: http://www.hwg.org/resources/faqs/priceFAQ.html for more details.

  • Job Opportunities

    While anyone is certainly welcome to join the list, recruiting on the list is pretty much frowned upon. If you have a job posting or are looking for a new opportunity, give the CF-Jobs list a shot.

  • Jokes/Chain Letters/Junk Mail/Off-topic Discussions

    It's tempting to share particularly funny stuff, but please, not on this list. These exclusions are primarily in the interest of keeping our mailboxes uncluttered! If you really feel like you want to put some off-topic information on the web, sign up on the CF-Community list and post it there. Chain letters and/or any type of junk mail are still not acceptable, though, in any of the lists.

  • Spam!

    If you really want to get yourself in hot water, there is nothing worse than sending unsolicited junk email to this list. It's truly fascinating to see how quickly vendors backpeddle when they inadvertently send spam to this group.

    NetLingo defines spam as: "To send identical and irrelevant postings to many different newsgroups or mailing lists. Usually this posting is something that has nothing to do with the particular topic of a newsgroup or of no real interest to the person on the mailing list. The name comes from a Monty Python song and is considered to be a serious violation of netiquette."

  • Hot Topics and Fighting

    Occasionally, a subject will come up that generates lots of posts because of its controversial nature. If the discussion threatens to overwhelm our mailboxes, or becomes nasty, the list managers will make a strong suggestion that those interested in discussing it further take their discussion off the list.

General Netiquette

When replying to an article, please only quote the portions that are absolutely necessary to help the reader. Including the 15 replies to your original post simply swamps the mail server.

Make sure to send new list mail to cf-talk@houseoffusion.com. This ensures that the whole list (your target) will see your message.

Always send list commands (such as unsubscribe and help) to cf-talk-request@houseoffusion.com. Again, this ensures that the list doesn?t send out several thousands of copies of your unsubscribe command.

Lots of communication to other people on the list can be accomplished through personal e-mail. Don't reply to the list unless you think your mail would be helpful and of interest to the majority.

Do not send copyrighted material. Instead, use an excerpt/quote from the material and include the URL.

Include the http:// part of the URL in your e-mail messages about sites for the convenience or readers with smart mail applications. e.g.: http://adoptioncenter.com instead of adoptioncenter.com.

Details, details, details

There is no better way of not getting a response than not being as descriptive and detailed as you could be in your message. Keep in mind that your post for help will go to people worldwide that have no clue as to what your environment setup is like. If you want help, make sure to list the version of ColdFusion that you?re using, your web server, your database, and any other relevant information about your problem.

Also, general posts to the list should have a header explaining what the subject is. This should be as exact as possible without overloading the subject line. For special posts that need people's attention, please use the guide below.

(admin)
Used by the list administrators only, to point out issues related to the mailing list or organization itself. Example: (admin) CF-Talk FAQ now available
 
(event)
For meetings, conference information, speakers, etc. Example: (event) Allaire conference 9/31
 
(job)
For job postings. Please post these to the CF-Jobs list if possible. Example: (job) Need NY CF help.
 
(news)
On-topic news du jour. Example: (news) Allaire up 50 points
 
(Security)
Security announcements such as virus warnings and security holes in CF, webservers, etc. This is not for discussing the CF security framework, which is a general topic. Example: (Security) CFDocs security hole
 

The 100K Email Attachment

Don't send email attachments to list posts if you can help it. All of the lists hosted on the server have an attachment file size limit so it's quite possible that your email may not get through. Instead, provide the data as text in the message of your post, offer to provide the data to those who request it, or put it up on the web for voluntary download. Not everyone has the ability to read attachments, nor do we all wish to grab the typically high-byte files over our skinny home modem lines. If you really need to store an attachment somewhere, a place will be provided on the House of Fusion site.

Also, do not send mail as HTML or Rich Text files (check your mail program's preferences and switch to plain text). It's typically frowned upon and will get you a nasty gram in your inbox.

Next Stop, CF-Talk

If you follow these simple guidelines, you should fare pretty well on the list. It is an invaluable resource and if you haven?t subscribed, I highly recommend that you spark up another browser window and shoot on over to the House of Fusion. While you?re there, be sure to check out all of the other cool lists that are available. Just remember to have a huge hard disk for all of the email you?ll receive.

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