[horde] OT: smart questions (was: Re: Latest CVS breaked the IMP login)

[rogerk at queernet.org]

Quoting Chuck Hagenbuch <chuck at horde.org>:
> 2. I'll come back to this later, but it also doesn't justify simply dumping 
> a problem in someone else's hands and basically insisting that a developer 
> stop developing - or documenting - to try and figure out what someone is 
> talking about.

Asking a list is not equivalent to asking the developer.  I generally ask a 
list in order to ask hundreds of other users -- if a developer chooses to 
respond, that's gravy.

> 2. HEAD is a development branch; as such, it is primarily for developers. 
> We don't restrict anyone from using it, but people who do use it have to be 
> willing to troubleshoot their own problems more than people using release 
> versions.

Fair enough.

> I've gone back to the archives to make sure I'm not completely off my 
> rocker, and I still don't see anything in that email that gives me 
> something to go on - IMAP server log entries, some indication of when they 
> updated, _something_. Given that my installation is up to date and working 
> as best I can tell (aside from what I have currently broken and am working 
> on, and a few known issues), a pointer to some question-asking 
> documentation seemed better than a bare "give us more info".

A pointer to general information-gathering concepts isn't anywhere near as 
useful, for instance, as generating a product-specific checklist.  Lots of 
people can't know enough to know what data might or might not be relevant.