[cisco-voip] TWIMC (To Whom It May Concern) or How to ask for assistance on Cisco-VoIP.

[Paul]

Cisco-VoIP is a publicly available resource and often gives great details about commonly, and in some cases rarely, encountered problems with Cisco's VoIP software, interrelated hardware, and its interaction with third-party products. People, including me, often ask for assistance and there are ways to get better responses to your answers than not.

1) Are you starting a new thread by sending an email to cisco-voip at puck.nether.net? (If you're trying to ask a new question by replying to someone else's thread, you're likely to get a response roughly equivalent to a smack in the head.)
2) What happened, when, and how often does problem x occur?
3) What software versions are you using?
4) What troubleshooting steps have you already taken to try to remediate the issue?
5) Have you searched with Google.com or Cisco.com?
[feel free to add other details folks]

What is DEFINTELY NOT OKAY is to ask in this fashion:
"I am using CCM 4. I made call to A. The call failed. Can anybody help me with this?"

You might as well have asked the list to help you wipe yourself after using the toilet.

Giving pertinent details about the problem such as traces, logs, or debugging sessions is always welcome. There's no guarantee anyone will know what the crux of the issue is but at least it shows effort on your part which is always appreciated. On the other hand, questions with hints of laziness will be ignored or flamed.

[Again, please add to this post if anybody feels I'm missing something here. . . ]