LA Netiquette. Asking the smart way - AtlasOfLivingAustralia/documentation GitHub Wiki

Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome to our guide on seeking assistance within the Living Atlases (LA) community through Slack channels, emails, or mailing lists.
Encountering service issues is not just a challenge—it’s an opportunity to deepen your understanding of the LA software and improve your infrastructure skills.

Remember: when facing a bug, “Keep calm and mind the bug.”
Each question is also a chance to improve our documentation and make the ecosystem stronger for future contributors.

Before Asking for Help

Before reaching out, try the following steps:

If none of these steps help, then it’s time to ask for help.

While Asking for Help

To foster a culture of shared knowledge:

  • Prefer public questions in Slack or issue trackers over private emails or DMs. Public discussions help others too.
  • Keep your Slack profile updated with your organization and location to provide context.
  • Include enough information: describe your problem clearly, add logs, screenshots, URLs of affected services, and relevant context (e.g., recent upgrades).
  • Avoid vague messages like “Some service doesn’t work.” The more detail you give, the easier it is to help you.

After Asking for Help

  • If you find a solution, reply with a confirmation. This helps others with the same issue.
  • If the problem remains unresolved, consider opening a GitHub issue in the relevant repository with as much detail as possible.
  • For critical or complex issues, try debugging it yourself. You can find guidance in our LA Developer's Guide.

Strategies to Enhance Our Documentation

  • “Who asks, documents.”
    If you received help, document the answer or update the wiki. The asker is often in the best position to describe the issue clearly in context.

  • Alternative: “Who answers, documents first.”
    Write up the solution and share a link to it, instead of repeating the same explanation in every thread.

Both strategies reduce repetitive questions and help strengthen our collective knowledge.

Recommended Reading

We highly recommend How To Ask Questions The Smart Way by Eric Steven Raymond for anyone seeking or offering support.