[Tutor] Newcomer with organizational questions

[Alan Gauld]

On 26/05/16 23:34, Max Jegers wrote:

> that I wrote a reply with a thank you and a follow-up question, only to
> discover that I don’t see a way to send it.

A mailing list works by email, so you reply as you would to any email.
If you use Reply it goes to the person who sent the email.
If you use Reply All it goes to everyone who received the original
email, including the sender. In the case of a list it also includes the
list(and everyone on it.)

So the simplest solution is to always use Reply All (or if
you have the option, Reply List) and it will go to the list.

> I reread *tutor-**bounces* auto-response, then did some googling and
> realized that I may need to subscribe. So I did on Sunday May 22, and the
> webpage said: “*Your subscription request has been received, and will soon
> be acted upon. Depending on the configuration of this mailing list, your
> subscription request may have to be first confirmed by you via email, or
> approved by the list moderator. If confirmation is required, you will soon
> get a confirmation email which contains further instructions.*”
> 
> Main question: Should I wait more or I am missing something I need to do at
> my end?

Nope, you are now subscribed.
However the default behaviour is to put new subscribers on a moderation
mode whereby all your early posts get caught in a queue and have to be
manually approved by a moderator. There are 3 of us but usually its me
:-) So I approved your post, it appeared on the list and I am now
replying to it.

> My purpose is to post a reply in a particular subject I initiated.

Find the mail and reply to it using Reply All.

A couple of important extra requirements
- Set your email to be plain text not HTML because HTML tends
  to mess the formatting which is critical for Python code.
  (You might be able to configure your mail tool to always
   use plain text for python.org posts.)
- Always include the code that's causing the problem
- Always include the full text of any errors you get
- Tell us your OS and Python version


> Please note that I did not receive anything from a tutor in my email other
> than *tutor-bounces* auto-response. I use Gmail.

That's just the server automated response.
Hopefully you receive this :-)

> -       -   May I attach a file to a message? Some Python libraries are
> quite big (50 pages in my case), however it may be not difficult for an
> expert to answer a question if he/she has a full library. At the same time,
> it seems inconsiderate and impractical to paste 50 pages into a message.

50 pages (how big is a page?)... probably too much.
Try to condense it by removing irrelevant bits.
My rule of thumb is up to 100 lines can goi in the message, bigger than
that [put it on a public pastebin and send a link.

Attachments are a bad idea because they often (but not always)
get stripped out for security reasons by the server.

> -       -   Can I paste not in plain text – using fonts etc?

No, see above. HTML loses spaces etc and destroys formatting

You can use plain text mark ups such as _underline_ or *bold*

> -       -   May I ask a follow-up question in the same thread, or should I
> start a new one?

If its a new topic start a new thread.
If its a follow up on the same topic keep it in the same thread

> -       -   Is this ok to post a message that contains thank you only, or
> these messages have to be deleted by moderators (like on stackoverflow.com?)

It's not necessary every time but I certainly don't delete them
and if the response took a lot of work, maybe by multiple
contributors its good to let us know when you finally solve
the problem.

> I believe first I was able to see a tutor’s response on external website:
> https://code.activestate.com/lists/python-tutor/107992/  - and much later
> on mail.python.org. Is this persistent behaviour?

The list archives are available in several places including
python.org and activestate.com.

You can also receive (and reply to) list messages using usenet(NNTP) via
gmane. (Thats actually how I read the list.) They also provide
an archive of old posts.

Feel free to ask any more questions about the list or about Python
or programming in general.

-- 
Alan G
Python tutor list moderator

Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
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