The biggest mistake newbies make is an unintentional lack of tact caused by excitement at having found a bunch of people who share their interest in electronics.
How to avoid this and increase your chances of getting help on Electronics_101 list:
1. Say please, and thank you. If people feel like you are demanding help, and not likely to be appreciative, they are a lot less likely to help.
2. Use a subject line that makes sense. Many of us have been here for a long time and are on many lists, and may scan subject lines and only read those that either interest us or cover something we think we can help with. Subject lines like "Help me", or "Strange thing" aren't likely to get as many people reading your message.
3. Be specific with your questions, and show us you've done your own work. Don't ask us to teach you everything there is to know about the subject, books are written about even narrow fields in electronics. "How do I use a transistor" is way too broad.
4. Use Google first. Search the internet, look in the Links section of this list and search the archives of this list, too.
5. Don't ask us to do your homework for you. Many of us have gone through school and can pretty quickly figure that out. Hey, if we weren't that smart, you wouldn't be asking us for help.
6. And from the other side of the coin, when someone new joins the list please keep in mind that English is a second language to most of the world. Please write things out, many of us will ignore messages written in "texting language". Example: "i nd hlp 4 my projct, r u abl 2 hlp?" And as the joke goes, England and America are "separated by a common language". A recent study indicates that people are convinced they can read accurately the emotions behind an email about 90% of the time, when in fact they are only 50% accurate.
Steve Greenfield
moderator Electronics_101
