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Manichean · 01-28-2011, 01:19 PM

I've written a somewhat longer introduction for new posters. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it:

In order to make it easier to get (and give) good answers to your questions, you need to consider a few things.

Before asking:

Use the forum search and/or an external search engine (for example Google) to see if your question has already been answered.
Look in the manual or the FAQ to see if your question has already been answered.
Find the correct subforum for asking your question. Read the forum descriptions to see what should go where.
Have a look at the sticky threads inside the relevant subforum to see if your question has already been answered.

While writing your post, consider this:

If you found a mention of your problem in a very old thread, open a new one. Remember that Calibre's development moves quite fast, usually there's a new version about once a week, thus, old threads contain outdated infos.
Use a meaningful title. Asking for "Help, please!!" or "Conversion broken?" isn't as good as titling your thread, for example, "Conversion fails Multi-HTML -> ePub" or "Plugboard problem using Cybook Gen3/ePub". The goal is to broadly describe your problem in the title.
Try to include as much meaningful detail as you can. State your OS and Calibre version, paste the error message(s) you get, failed conversion logs, etc.
Include relevant configuration where needed, for example, when asking for help in emailing books, include your email settings (remember to blank out username/passwords for security reasons, though).
If possible, provide step-by-step- instructions on how to replicate your error. That includes attaching test cases if you can do so without violating copyright.
Describe what goes wrong as clearly as possible. Saying "My ebook is very messy after conversion" is less helpful than saying "My ebook has many hardcoded double linebreaks as well as page footers including page numbers interspersed after conversion".
If you've already tried a few things to fix the problem, describe what you've tried as well. That saves the people answering from suggesting trying those things, only to be told that you already did.
Make an effort to write your post to be easily readable. That includes trying to use normal grammar, spelling and interpunctuation.

If you're not getting any replies after you've written your post, that doesn't mean that nobody read your post. Usually, it means that noone has a good idea as to how your question should be answered. In that case, be patient, maybe someone is already working on trying to find an answer.

01-28-2011, 01:19 PM	#132
Manichean Wizard Posts: 3,130 Karma: 91256 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Germany Device: Cybook Gen3	I've written a somewhat longer introduction for new posters. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it: In order to make it easier to get (and give) good answers to your questions, you need to consider a few things. Before asking: Use the forum search and/or an external search engine (for example Google) to see if your question has already been answered. Look in the manual or the FAQ to see if your question has already been answered. Find the correct subforum for asking your question. Read the forum descriptions to see what should go where. Have a look at the sticky threads inside the relevant subforum to see if your question has already been answered. While writing your post, consider this: If you found a mention of your problem in a very old thread, open a new one. Remember that Calibre's development moves quite fast, usually there's a new version about once a week, thus, old threads contain outdated infos. Use a meaningful title. Asking for "Help, please!!" or "Conversion broken?" isn't as good as titling your thread, for example, "Conversion fails Multi-HTML -> ePub" or "Plugboard problem using Cybook Gen3/ePub". The goal is to broadly describe your problem in the title. Try to include as much meaningful detail as you can. State your OS and Calibre version, paste the error message(s) you get, failed conversion logs, etc. Include relevant configuration where needed, for example, when asking for help in emailing books, include your email settings (remember to blank out username/passwords for security reasons, though). If possible, provide step-by-step- instructions on how to replicate your error. That includes attaching test cases if you can do so without violating copyright. Describe what goes wrong as clearly as possible. Saying "My ebook is very messy after conversion" is less helpful than saying "My ebook has many hardcoded double linebreaks as well as page footers including page numbers interspersed after conversion". If you've already tried a few things to fix the problem, describe what you've tried as well. That saves the people answering from suggesting trying those things, only to be told that you already did. Make an effort to write your post to be easily readable. That includes trying to use normal grammar, spelling and interpunctuation. If you're not getting any replies after you've written your post, that doesn't mean that nobody read your post. Usually, it means that noone has a good idea as to how your question should be answered. In that case, be patient, maybe someone is already working on trying to find an answer.