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<document url="http://castor.org/lists.xml">
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    <title>Castor Mailing Lists</title>
    <header>
    </header>
    <section title="Mailing Lists">

      <p><b>Note:</b> Presently we are hosting three mailing lists. Traffic is not too high,
         so if you are interested in keeping up to date with new releases, or have problems,
         questions or feedback please <a href="lists.xml">subscribe
         to the appropriate list</a>.
      </p>

      <section title="announce">
         <p><b>announce</b></p>
         <p>Low volume (possibly more than 1 message per week) mailing list for special
            announcements about Castor, such as new releases.</p>

         <p><mailing-list name="announce" description="The Castor Announcement Mailing List"
                       server="codehaus.org"/></p>
       </section>

      <section title="user">
         <p><b>user</b></p>
         <p>Moderate volume expected (possibly more than 15 messages a day) mailing list dedicated
            to the <b>users</b> of Castor.</p>

         <p>This list will be used by users and committers equally to discuss the following
            items (amongst many others):</p>

         <ul>
           <li>General usage questions.</li>
           <li>Problems using Castor.</li>
         </ul>

         <p><mailing-list name="user" description="The Castor User's Mailing List"
                       server="codehaus.org" /></p>

         <p><b>Note:</b> Please familiarize yourself with the <a href="#Guidelines">guidelines</a>
             before posting to the list.</p>

         <p><b>Archives:</b></p>
         <ul>
            <li><a href="http://archive.castor.codehaus.org/user">The Codehaus</a></li>
            <li><a href="http://www.mail-archive.com/user@castor.codehaus.org/">mail-archive.com</a></li>
            <li><a href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=castor-user&amp;r=1&amp;w=2">The Aims Group</a></li>
            <li><a href="http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.java.castor.user">GMANE</a></li>
         </ul>

      </section>

      <section title="dev">
         <p>Moderate volume (possibly more than 15 messages a day) mailing list dedicated
            to the <b>developers</b> of Castor.</p>

         <p>This list will be used by the main committers to discuss the following items:</p>

         <ul>
           <li>Bug reports/enhancement requests.</li>
           <li>On-going development activities.</li>
           <li>New features to be incorporated into the product.</li>
         </ul>

         <p>We invite everybody (interested) to subscribe to this mailing list, as we
            believe that feedback from the user community on many of these issues is
            essential for the progress of the project.</p>

         <p><mailing-list name="dev" description="The Castor Developer's Mailing List"
                       server="codehaus.org" /></p>

         <p><b>Note:</b> Please familiarize yourself with the <a href="#Guidelines">guidelines</a>
            before posting to the list.</p>

         <p><b>Archives:</b></p>
         <ul>
            <li><a href="http://archive.castor.codehaus.org/dev">The Codehaus</a></li>
            <li><a href="http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@castor.codehaus.org/">mail-archive.com</a></li>
            <li><a href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=castor-dev&amp;r=1&amp;w=2">The Aims Group</a></li>
            <li><a href="http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.java.castor.devel">GMANE</a></li>
         </ul>

      </section>

    </section>

    <section title="user vs. dev">

       <p>Please use above mailing lists for what they are intended for. Please use
          the descriptions above to target your message to the correct mailing list.</p>

       <p>By all means, please avoid <b>cross-posting</b> messages to both lists,
          as it will decrease the quality of service we would like to offer.</p>

       <p><b>Note</b>: Having said that, there might be a valid case for cross-posting
          a message (e.g. us confirming that a problem is a result of a bug, and hence
          referring you to 'dev' for further discussions), but in general
          the use of this should be restricted as much as possible.</p>
    </section>

    <section title="Interaction and acronyms">

       <p>As we believe that an effective interaction with the user community is
          essential for Castor to progress as a project, we have decided to establish a
          slightly more structured approach in dealing with many of the issues we
          and you encounter.</p>

       <section title="Acronyms">
          <p>Especially on (but not necessarily restricted to) 'dev', we will be much
             more interactive about many of the issues mentioned above. As such, we have
             decided to structure our messages more thoroughly, and have come up with the
             following set of acronyms to show our intention:</p>

          <ul>
              <li><i>RFC</i> - <b>R</b>equest <b>F</b>or <b>C</b>omment</li>
              <li><i>RFV</i> - <b>R</b>equest <b>F</b>or <b>V</b>oting</li>
              <li><i>ANN</i> - <b>ANN</b>ouncement</li>
              <li><i>RFR</i> - <b>R</b>equest <b>F</b>or <b>R</b>eview</li>
          </ul>

       </section>

       <section title="[XML] or [JDO]">

          <p>Please prefix your messages to all mailing list with either [XML] or [JDO].
             This will help us to improve the time it takes us to react to your needs.
             Having said that, all committers will monitor both areas.</p>

       </section>

    </section>

    <section title="Guidelines">
    <p>
    The following are some general "common-sense" guidelines for using the
    mailing lists:</p>

    <p>
    Most people are already following these guidelines. To those people, we
    thank you. For those of you who are not ... please read carefully.

    <ol>

       <li><p>Please be kind and respectful to your fellow castor users.</p></li>

       <li><p>Please refrain from using words and phrases like URGENT, IMPORTANT,
           MY WIFE WILL LEAVE ME IF YOU DO NOT RESPOND, etc, in the subject line
           of your postings. Or even in the body of the message for that matter.</p>

           <p>You may think that things which are URGENT, or IMPORTANT to you,
           are just as urgent and important to everyone else reading this
           list. You'd be surprised at just how wrong an assumption like
           that can be.</p></li>

       <li><p>Please use meaningful subject lines. "Newbie Question",
           is not meaningful what-so-ever.</p></li>

       <li><p>Please provide necessary information, where applicable.
           Statements like, "I receive a NullPointerException when
           using Castor, what's up with that?", are not very helpful,
           add unnecessary traffic on the list, and will probably
           never get an answer.</p></li>

       <li><p>As a follow on to #3, when submitting examples, please try
           to submit the smallest possible example which demonstrates
           the problem. Short examples are easier to follow and will
           get quicker responses from developers or other users than
           long examples with lots of extraneous code/data.</p></li>

       <li><p>Please read the documentation before posting. It doesn't take
           long and it will save us valuable time from having to answer
           questions that are already covered in the docs.</p></li>

       <li><p>Please check the mail archives before posting. Many questions
           on this list have already been answered before.</p></li>

       <li><p>Please refrain from posting confidential information. Once an
           e-mail is sent to the list, it goes out to all subscribers,
           including archive engines. We cannot remove or delete messages
           sent to the list. Once sent they are available for the public
           to see. If you are unsure about what is confidential or not,
           check with your manager, supervisor, or the person in charge
           at your company.</p></li>


       <li><p>If you are going on vacation. Please enjoy yourself. We
           really want you to have fun and get some much needed
           rest and relaxation. With that being said and to be
           perfectly honest none of us really want to receive your
           automated vacation responses. So please either add a filter
           to your vacation response so it doesn't get sent to the
           list or users posting to the list, or simply remove yourself
           from the list before you go, and add yourself back when
           you return.</p></li>

       <li><p>Please refrain from sending emails to this mailing list formatted
           as text/html.</p></li>
           
       <li><p>Please start a new thread per topic/question. As a result of this, please
           avoid 'hijacking' existing threads.</p></li>

    </ol>
    </p>


    </section>

     <section title="A note about HTML formatted e-mail">
       <p>
       As stated in the guildelines above (see #10), please <b>refrain</b> from sending email to
       these mailing lists formatted as <b>'text/html'</b> under all circumstances.
       </p>
       <p>
       Amongst other things, it complicates life for users not working on
       Windows and decreases usability of the mailing list archives, as it
       prevents text searches from returning useful results.
       </p>
       <p>
       Additional information why we consider HTML emails to be avoided can be
       found <a href="http://www.birdhouse.org/etc/evilmail.html">here</a>.
       </p>
     </section>

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