Effective Posting - firemodels/fds GitHub Wiki

Guidelines For Creating Effective Posts

The key to getting good answers is doing your homework and then asking good questions. Before you ask any questions you should have

• Read the FDS User's Guide.
• Read the FDS Technical Guide.
• Read the Smokeview User's Guide (If it is a Smokeview question).
• Take time to review the example files that are provided with the FDS installation package.
• Made sure your documentation and software are up to date. See Downloads.
• Searched the Discussion Group and Issues for relevant keywords (has someone else already asked your question, reported your bug?).

When you ask a question,

• If you are reporting a bug then you should use Issues not the Discussion Group.
• Give some background that indicates what you have done to try and answer the question yourself.
• Use descriptive subject lines, like "The NFRAMES option is not working" --- not, "I need help".
• Reply to our replies and not new posts --- It is hard to follow a thread if it is continually broken.
• Keep in mind the differences in time zones and please be patient. Users from all around the world participate in these forums and most of us need to sleep some time!
• Keep in mind that no one has the full time job of providing user support and there will be times when the developers are fully occupied with other tasks/projects.
• If you think a problem is a bug, then submit it to Issues, along with a very simple demonstration of the problem in a short input file.
• If your problem is the documentation is unclear, be specific about what is unclear. A comment like "Chapter 12 makes no sense" doesn't help us improve the documentation, but a comment like "The symbol X in Eq... is not defined" does.
• If the response you receive does not answer your question, it may be that what you were asking was not clear or was misinterpreted. Reply to the reply and rephrase your question and/or provide additional information. Asking the exact same question multiple times does not help but rather frustrates those trying to answer your question.
• If your question is about an input file you are trying to run, simplify it as much as possible before including as part of your post or as an attachment. It is much easier to provide assistance with 10 - 20 lines of input vs. 10,000 lines of input.

Guidelines For Reporting Problems To Issues

Before you report a problem to the issue tracker you should:

• Search through current issues to see if someone else has reported the problem.
• Reproduce the problem with the latest version of FDS and Smokeview.
• Reproduce your problem with a simplified version of your input file.

When you make a report to Issues:

• Give your report a meaningful title related to your problem.
• Include the code version and Git revision number (if you type fds or smokeview at a prompt without an input file, this info will be displayed) and the operating system.
• Provide a summary of your problem including any steps you took to try and solve it.
• Attach the simplified version of your input file that reproduces the problem.

When you receive email updates on your report:

• If we request additional information from you, please respond promptly.
• Once we have fixed your report, please verify the fix once we release a new version.

Use of Copyrighted Material

Do not post copyrighted material to Issues or to Discussions unless you personally own the rights to the material. Should a publisher file a DMCA complaint with GitHub about FDS, FDS would risk being banned. If group managers observe copyrighted material being posted, the offending post will be deleted and the user who made the post will be warned. Repeated violations will result in the user being banned.