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Mailing List Posting Guidelines

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isaacs edited this page Jun 24, 2011 · 16 revisions

There are two node mailing lists, with different purposes.

nodejs-dev http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs-dev

The nodejs-dev list is for these subjects:

  1. Suggested changes to the nodejs API.
  2. Discussion of patches that are not yet mature enough for a proper github pull request.
  3. Build errors or other internal node bugs that are not investigated fully enough for a proper github issue report.

That's it. It's a very quiet list. Keep in mind that people whose jobs involve node.js tend to monitor this list very closely, so we want to keep the signal-to-noise ratio as high as possible.

Reproducible bugs in node should be posted at https://github.com/joyent/node/issues

Patches that are either extremely simple and obvious, or have previously been discussed on nodejs-dev, should be sent as github pull requests to joyent/node.

nodejs http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs

The main nodejs list is for almost everything else, including but not limited to:

  1. Release announcements for Node.js programs.
  2. Community events, meetups, drinkups, workups, hack nights, conferences, and other social events.
  3. Discussions of Node.js community guidelines and policies
  4. JavaScript language discussions/questions/suggestions.
  5. Discussions of other SSJS platforms.
  6. Issues with specific node programs. (Though, it's worth checking if they have their own mailing list. Express, socket.io, npm, and many others have their own dedicated lists, where you'll generally get faster help.)
  7. "Help, I'm new to JS and need to know why this code doesn't work." Note that this is very different from "Please do my homework for me"! General rules of techie politeness apply. Be easy to help, and you'll get more help.
  8. What's awesome, what's lame, who's hot, who's not, who just had a baby, a funny video on youtube, philosophy, politics, sports, or any other (valuable!) primate-bonding subjects that you as a member of the node.js community are interested in and feel like sharing with others in the community. It's not reddit, and it should be at least somewhat node-related to be shared on the list, but the bar is pretty low.

Not Allowed

Here are some things that do not belong on either list:

Job Posts

Please post node-related job openings at http://jobs.nodejs.org/

Job openings for node-related positions should not be posted to either mailing list. For a while, this was encouraged, because it benefitted the community to have some outlet for these things, and there was no job board. However, they seem to cause a lot of clutter, and invite flame wars as to what "really" counts as a "node job".

Posting on the job board costs money. The reason for this is to weed out people who are not serious about their intent to hire a node developer to work on node. Node is a popular buzzword, and spam is an unfortunate side effect of that.

The price isn't intended to be exorbitant. If the price is a significant obstacle to you for some reason (for example, if you are an unfunded self-bootstrapped startup looking for a partner), then please contact us off-list and we'll try to work something out. The last thing anyone wants is to prevent the node ecosystem from growing.

Flame

If someone offends or insults you on-list, it's probably inadvertent. Most people try to be nice most of the time, or at least think they are. Take it up with them off-list. That kind of drama is not interesting to other users.

This also covers generally mean-spirited comments about other platforms. Complaining about other platforms doesn't help node.

Extended debates about whether a given message belongs where someone sent it

If someone posts something that you think doesn't belong in the place they posted it, please direct them to this page, and trust that they'll read it and try to follow it.

If you think this page is unclear or unhelpful, then let's discuss that with the community, without making it about a specific user, who will probably end up feeling guilty and picked on, and almost certainly had the best intentions. We need to encourage our community to grow, and we can't do that by berating new people.

"bump" messages

If no one has answered your question, it's probably because no one knows the answer, or you're asking in the wrong place. Replying to an old thread with no new information is clutter. Please don't do it.

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