Re: How to approach the list

Providing small samples is one of the three things I suggest to
people who are having trouble communicating with XSL-List.

An off-list message that I have sent to quite a few of you at one
time or another says:

You will improve the chances that you will receive prompt and helpful responses by:

  - asking specific enough questions that answers are possible. Describe
    what you are trying to do, how you approached it, what happened, and
    why you don't like the result you got

  - supplying small samples of files that illustrate your question or
    problem. For example, an XML file, an XSLT stylesheet, the result
    you got, and the result you want - all in miniature (and remembering
    that everything posted to XSL-List is archived in public)

  - describing the topic of your question concisely in the subject line
    Good subject lines - those that describe the subject matter of your
    message - not only increase the chances that you will receive answers
    to questions or responses to comments, they also make your message
    and any replies to it accessible in the list archives.