| Notices |
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
Are you new to LinuxQuestions.org? Visit the following links:
Site Howto |
Site FAQ |
Sitemap |
Register Now
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
|
|
By XavierP at 2005-05-29 12:58
|
|
Continuing with the theme that the best way to get better posting on LQ is by education, I have written this how-to on the various features open to you, the LQ member. This will not cover absolutely everything on LQ, but will hopefully enlighten you on the more important areas.
Things to Remember Before Posting
LQ Has Rules
When you first signed up to LQ you agreed to a set of Rules. The list of Rules is not large currently it is at 14 bullet points. The whole point of having them is to make your, and everyone else's, posting experience that bit more enjoyable. You, the user, agreed to them when you signed up to the site. They are binding for as long as you post to the site. I encourage everyone to read them and to periodically refresh their minds by re-reading them. The only thing between you and an eventual ban is adhering to these very easy to follow rules.
Many Questions Already Have An Answer
I will come back to this further down the page when we discuss technical questions but, for now, LQ has a Site FAQ List which cover 26 questions you may have about LQ. (At the time of writing this the list is 26 long but it may change).
One of the most Frequently Asked Questions is "When will the board stop calling me a newbie?". That question, and others like it, are available on the Site FAQ.
We Have More Than One Forum
If you go to our Forum List, you will see that we have a list of 18 main forums and a short description of each of them. These forums have sub-forums. So you can see that you are not limited to just posting in one place and nowhere else. Think about your question and ask yourself "where is the one best place it fits in?". Just because you use Fedora doesn't mean that your question belongs in that forum. Putting your question in the correct forum first time means that you are far more likely to receive a useful answer quickly.
The Internet Police Are Everywhere
If you post your question in the wrong place, more than once or post something inappropriate (and foul language in a post counts here) or otherwise break the Rules of the site the site Admin and Moderators will find out about it. We browse the boards, for one thing, and see the same posts as everyone else. Or someone will see your post and click the link which says "Report this post to a moderator". The easiest way to not have anything like this happen is to not break the Rules. It really is as simple as that.
On the plus side, Moderators are not just there for bad things, if you think your needs will be better met by another forum on LQ you can report your own post and request a move. That's the sort of thing that Moderators are there for and the team really doesn't mind doing it.
Other Provisions You Will Need to Bring With You
Patience and Politeness. LinuxQuestions.org has a membership of almost 174,000 people dotted all around the world. When you post, at least half of our members are likely to be asleep or at work or otherwise unavailable. This means that the person with the answer could be a few hours away from logging on and seeing your question. So be patient. The owner of the site has arranged it so that posts which go unanswered are moved back to the top of the queue after preselected periods. So you don't need to do anything to your post for at least 24 hours, unless you have some extra information to add (and I'll discuss this further down this how-to).
Politeness is very important, just because your thread hasn't been answered yet doesn't mean that you are being ignored. It just means that it hasn't received an answer. There are 2 ways to potentially rectify this the wrong way and the right way. The wrong way is to moan and whine that everyone is ignoring your exceptionally important question - doing this will mean that you will definitely get answers, just not of the right kind. The right way is to add information - searches you've tried, error messages and things like that. I don't want to harp on about this too much, especially as it's already covered by How To Ask a Question (in the Linux Tutorials section, more on that later).
So, read and understand all of this before posting and no one needs to get hurt.
What's All This Stuff I Am Seeing?
On the main forums page, you will see a lot of information, here is a quick rundown:
The Advertisements - LQ gets a number of it's ads from Google. We have no control over the ads we are sent, so if you see a Microsoft ad it's not because we have decided to take the Microsoft dollar, it's because that's the ad Google wants to send us. Just email the site admin and let him know.
The horizontal menu bar beneath the LQ logo (reading left to right) you will see:- Home - this will take you back to the LQ home page
- Forums - this will take you back to the forums page
- HCL - the Hardware Compatibility List, this is a place where our members can post up what hardware they have and what works and doesn't work. Read this before you buy and you will save yourself some bother
- Reviews - in this section our members list distros, books, magazines and other things that they have bought/tried/read - it's a very useful resource for you before trying a distro or if you want a technical book to read
- Search - this is very important, many questions can be answered by simply searching the site
- Tutorials - our members have put together a number of tutorials on installing hardware and software or setting up a home network among other things. Hit this area for an answer to your question
- User CP - here you can change your settings, set up bookmarks and do other things
Down the right hand side of the page, you will see:
Main Menu- Linux Forums - a link back to the main forums page
- Search - a link to the search page
- Linux HCL - a link to the Hardware Compatibility List
- Linux Tutorials - a link to the Tutorial area
- Linux Wiki - LQ has it's own Wiki, an online resource of information pertaining mainly to Linux
- Distro Reviews - a link to the Linux distribution area of the Review Section
- Book Reviews - a link to the Books area of the Review Section
- Download Linux - a link to an area of LQ that lists distributions and where to download them
- Press Releases - press releases about LQ
- Linux Podcast - we have our own Podcast!
- LQ Radio - and our own online Radio Station!
- LQ Memberlist - a List of LQ Members and their profiles
- LQ Quizzes - we have a list of quizzes on a variety of things here
- Home - back to the LQ homepage
My LQ- LQ UserCP - your User Control Panel, where you can change your settings
- My Subscribed Threads - here is a list of threads you have subscribed to
- My Posts - a complete list of all the posts you have ever made
- My Threads - a complete list of all the threads you have ever started
- Logout - log out of LQ
Write for LQ
As this area says "LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know."
Main Menu- LQ Calendar - the calendar lists all member birthdays and any other events that have been added by members. Feel free to add to it yourself
- Site FAQ - the Frequently Asked Questions area
- Linux Links - a long list of links to sites that deal with Linux issues
- View New Posts - the page with the current posts and threads arranged in date/time order
- 0 Reply Threads - just the threads with no replies. We want this to be reduced as far as possible, feel free to help
- LQ Wiki Most Wanted - a list of Wiki entries that have names but no text. Again, feel free to help
- Jeremy's Blog - Jeremy is the site owner and admin, his blog has his thoughts on news items. Well worth a read.
Syndicate
You can read LQ and related sites via RSS and other, similar, readers.
Bottom of the page- LinuxQuestions Merchandise - to help finance the site and to let us, the members, show others our favorite Linux help site we can buy T-shirts and mugs and other things with the LQ logo on
- Linux Man Pages - when you are told to read the manual, these pages are a handy first point of call. They are the same man pages as on your pc, just a little easier to navigate
- Contact Us - if you wish to advertise on LQ or just need to contact Jeremy, use the form here
- Rules - remember the Rules I talked about earlier? Here's the permanent link to them
- LinuxQuestions.org - back to the home page again
- Free Email - you can have a <your name>@linuxquestions.net email for no cost, if you want
- Linux Wiki - another link to the LinuxQuestions Wiki site
- Donations - like what you see and want to help? Donate some cash to help with costs
- Advertising - information for those of you that wish to sponsor LQ or advertise on LQ
- LQ Teams - did you know that LQ has a SETI team, a Folding@Home team and a Distributed.net team? Well, you do know. Sign up to help others
- Contributing Member - a number of our members have a Contributing Member title. By donating an amount of money to the site, you can turn off ads, enable the Personal Messaging feature and other things. And you feel good for contributing. The site is still free to those who don't want to pay and receive these benefits.
All of these are links which are on every page, no matter where you are on the site. So anytime you see that someone can't navigate the site, now you can tell them what to do.
So far, in case you haven't noticed, we haven't even touched on your actual post. Here's why: often, when a question is asked, the person is told to "RTFM" - to Read The F...ine Manual. That's not just because the person answering is rude and surly, it's because others have taken the time to read the documentation or to look around and found the answer without help. This is why the links are duplicated or triplicated and are all over the site - it's so that wherever you are, the information you need is available. All you have to do is look.
So, now that you have seen, read and understood what all those words are around the screen, we can move onto posting. First, a few short words about your post: Search LQ First. Why? because if you don't, you can guarantee that the first person to answer will say "I found the answer in a thread posted 10 minutes ago". And then it all goes wrong.
OK, I've Signed Up
Ace, and welcome to LQ. There is another important area to look at before you post your question: the User CP (or User Control Panel). Click the link and follow me:
My LQ Home
This is where you always first land when going to the User CP.- To the left, your Buddy List. Obviously it's a list of people who you have deemed to be your buddies, or who have said that you referred them. And you can see if they are online or not.
- New Private Messages: if you can receive them, you'll see if you have any here
- My Bookmarks: you can set up bookmarks to webpages here
- Subscribed Forums: a list of forums you are watching
- Subscribed Threads: a list of threads you are watching
- My LQpad: a limited blog page, just for you
Edit Profile
Change how the site works for you- the Email Address fields: here you can set which email address the site will use to contact you
- ICQ Number: if you have one and want site members to ICQ you, post your number here
- AOL Instant Messenger Handle: same as above, but put your AOL name here
- Yahoo Messenger Handle: same as above, but for Yahoo
- Signature: here you can create a short signature block with either a pithy message or a link to a site or 2.
- Birthdate: if you fill this out, you get a birthday cake picture next to all your posts when it's your birthday and others will know when to congratulate you
I'm not going to go through the Additional Information except for the 2 most important points:- Location: at least tell us your country. That way, if you ask "which ISP will allow me to use Linux on their system?" we will not post ISPs that are nowhere near you.
- Distribution: tell us what you use, that way we can tailor our answers to you
The remainder of the options available are pretty standard and have their own explanations. Browse around to see what's available.
Let's move to the "New Thread" page (go to the forum you want to post in and look towards the top right of the screen. See that "New Thread" button? Click it).
The New Thread Page
There is a lot of stuff on this page, we'll ignore the top, right hand side and bottom of the page as that's covered above.
Let's start:- Logged in User: that's you. If it's not you, log the person off and log in as yourself. It's impolite to post as someone else.
- Subject: This is extremely important. This is the only page on which you can affect the title. Once you submit the thread, only Jeremy the admin can change it. There are 3 examples of the type of thread title to use. Try to use ones like examples 2 and 3 and not 1.
Under here you will see a button marked "Click Here To Find Similar Threads". After creating your title, hit the button. It will run a search so you can see if anyone else has had the question answered. You get no bonuses for posting the same question as everyone else.
- Message Icon: by default, your message doesn't have an icon. This icon will show up in the thread listings. There is absolutely no benefit to using an icon, so it's up to you whether to use one.
- vB Code: the buttons used here are pretty self explanatory. You can use them to format your post, add bold text, italics, a url and other things. Use them wisely.
- Message: Also extremely important. Put in error messages, a full description of your problem and other relevant information.
- Smilies: a list of emoticons you can use if you wish.
- Options: just a few extra options to help your post be dealt with better
- Post a poll: if you want to poll others views, you can create it here. Remember, make the poll and the thread relevant to each other.
And finally, before hitting the "Submit New Thread" button, hit "Spell Check" to make sure you haven't made elementary errors and then hit "Preview Post" to make sure that it all looks ok.
And that's it - post your thread and wait for the answers. You haven't received an answer in 24 hours? Review your post and ask yourself - if I wasn't me and read this, would I have enough basic information to start trying to answer it? If the answer is "no", then add the information you would need to make it answerable: error messages, other searches you've tried and things like that.
Hopefully, you will now have enough basic information to browse around and use LQ. Remember, if you don't break the Rules, you won't get banned - it really is as simple as that.
|
|
|
|
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:13 AM.
|
|
|
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.
|
|
 Latest Threads
LQ News
LQ Podcast
LQ Radio
|
|
I have noticed the button is back: I used it today on another thread.
It is back, is it not? I did not see it before.
I know there were plenty of discussion about it in the past
e.g. "Threads - A way to close them out"
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...nswered+button
or
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...nswered+button
Regards
should it not be
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi..._user_maintain