Things to keep in mind when posting questions/initiating thread:
a.) Avoid posting information outside the scope of a usergroup. “Outside the scope” includes but is not limited to – general news, job openings etc. For general information related to .NET, please use the job specific messageboard
b.) Do not mark subjects of all your messages as URGENT or REPLY SOON. Use these words with a lot of caution and discretion – use them as exception and not as norm. Use them only if you need a speedy resolution of an exceptional problem – its impolite and improper to mark all your queries as URGENT.
c.) Search before you post. Please search our archive http://www.mail-archive.com/bdotnet@groups.msn.com/, prior to posting a question – a question similar to yours might have already been answered. Also it won’t hurt to try a quick search at http://groups.google.com before posting your query
d.) Don’t make usergroups arenas of dog fighting. If you really disagree with what a person has posted, try to sort it out with him/her offline. Spilling personal attacks into usergroups serves no purpose. Please refrain from getting personal or using strong language.
e.) Don’t post entire projects / screenshots running into several hundred kilobytes! Post relevant sections of your code. If you must post complete listing zip it up before attaching. For large projects / screenshots, provide a link to zip file on internet. A lot of websites allow free space – both MSN and Yahoo!. Sign up with them and use their service to upload your file for everyone.
f.) Keep a thread relevant. When you thank someone for answering your query or post a clarification to someone’s answer, avoid asking question which is not relevant to the thread. Post your question as a fresh message instead.
Things to keep in mind when answering questions/responding to existing messages:
a.) When answering questions, try to make your answer as useful as possible. Include code snippets demonstrating your points wherever possible. Include links to relevant KB articles/relevant website wherever possible.
b.) If the question you are trying to answer has been answered by you or someone before, try pointing the user to the relevant post using http://groups.google.com/ or the message archive link mentioned above.
c.) Follow up your threads! If you reply to a question, please try to keep a tab on the subsequent thread. A lot of users tend to post back to your reply asking for clarification or asking another question.
