Guidelines for Posting to Watir General Google Group

Guidelines for Posting to Watir General Google Group

Before posting, please read the following guidelines.

Off Topic Posts

• The Watir General mailing list is for people testing with Ruby. It is appropriate to ask questions related to testing with Ruby even if they are not directly related to Watir. We may not have the answers, but you can ask.
• When we can we will do our best to help you with problems and questions related to other coding conventions used in your Watir scripts.
• Please consider posting your questions to other more appropriate forums if you don't get the response you need. For example, the comp.lang.ruby group, Selenium-Webdriver group, etc.
• For general Ruby questions, consider http://ruby-doc.org/ or http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

General Posting Guidelines

• Search before posting; chances are, someone has already asked the same question.
  • Take a look at Watir Search, Google custom search engine.
  • Check StackOverflow
• Use standard English, not SMS or chat speak.
• Do not ask for help 'real time'. Be respectful of others; Watir users are colleagues and do not work for you; these people are volunteering their time and experience to help the community free of charge.
• Include Watir version ('gem list watir') and Ruby version ('ruby -v')
• Include Watir and HTML code.
  • Do not give too much irrelevant information. The whole HTML of your page or your entire Watir script is probably too much.
• Include the error message and the stack trace.
• Do not give too little information. Please, do not make us ask these questions again and again:
  • What are you trying to do?
  • What did you try?
  • What did you expect?
  • What do you mean by "does not work"? A (full) stack trace is probably the best way to describe an error. If you aren't getting one, describe fully what you expected to happen and what actually happened.
• Provide the actual code you used. Do not retype it for us. We often see code with obvious typos. When we point these out, the original poster says "that wasn't the real code." At this point we don't feel like helping any more, because we have no confidence that the problem being reported actually corresponds to the real problem.
• Sign post with your real name.
• Post your question only once. If you are not getting the response you expected, consider posting additional information (or see the "Why isn't my question being answered section").
• Please do not ask new questions in an unrelated thread.
• Before you have a post, please make sure you can understand what you ask, make sure others can understand you even if they have not your environment, maybe you can attach a picture, have the code snippet, or make a short example. I find the great contributors have to ask the questions-senders again and again when they would like to help.

If you want to read more guidelines, check out Identifying problems and proposing solutions for the Watir community thread at Watir General.

After reading the above, and you need help with Watir, post your problem to Watir General Google group.

Why isn't my question being answered?

Watir General is made up of mainly people that are testers for a living. We pride ourselves on being able to provide thoughtful and meaningful descriptions of software bugs we find on the job and we think you should too. If your question isn't getting answered, consider the following:

• Is what you are doing clear? If you can provide the context of what you are doing so people can understand how you are using Watir, it will be easier to help. It may also reveal that what you want to do doesn't really use Watir at all (and using another Ruby library may work better).
• Are you asking a question or are you not sure how something works? If you are having trouble wording your question, chances are there is something you don't quite understand. Go back and read up on the relevant wiki articles, similar posts, etc. If you are still unsure, try to ask clarifying questions so you can better understand the code you are writing. Then you will be able to ask even better (and more coherent) questions.
• Could somebody who doesn't know anything about your website or your code reasonably be expected to understand what you are doing from your email? Unless you have a public website, we can't see the HTML you are accessing unless you post it. If somebody can pull up your example in their own browser to test things out you will get better feedback on your issue.
• Questions about Popups, AutoIt or some other Frequently Asked Question? If the topic falls into this category, please show us you have done your homework by showing you have tried and why your issue can't be solved using the techniques listed.
• Have you asked the same question several times over the course of a couple of days with no answer? This community considers this behavior rude. If your question doesn't get answered it's because you aren't providing the right kind of information or haven't asked the question in a coherent way. Also, don't tell us that something is extremely urgent and you need an answer right away. This is the easiest way to ensure a question doesn't get answered.