New "Welcome Message"

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Hello Folks,

	To try to take some of the presure off of Gert and Marc, we've decided to
edit the Welcome To The Mail List message that we all recieved when/if we
subscribe to the group. If you are an "old-timer" to the list, you'll
likely read this and just nod your head. Although, if you're new, you may
find this helpful when you've encountered an error.


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Hello Good People,

	Welcome to the mgetty/vgetty mailing list! I hope that during the time
that you follow this list that you find it informative, direct, and diverse
enough to assist you in the problems you have encountered. This list exists
to answer the questions that you may have, to have direct contact and
interface with the creators (maintainers), and to supply a more personal
means of support for the problem areas that are discovered.
	Due to the size of the mailing list, the amount of mails that are
processed through the list, and the limited time of the persons maintaining
the packages, we need YOU to do some things for us before writing to the list.

	Foremost, if you do NOT supply us with the information we need to assist
you in isolating/curing your particular problem, you have just wasted all
of our time. (Remember, this is done for free, and on our "free time") 
The biggest reason for this is the NUMBEROUS re-repeats of the same
questions, over & over & over on the list which steals time. PLEASE do a
search of the mail-list archive first which is located at
http://www.elilabs.com/mgarc/  Also, the list is searchable with deja news,
and the mgetty archives are searchable with most of the popular search
engines by constraining the search to www.elilabs.com. If you will start
the search from the Elijah Laboratories Home page at
http://www.elilabs.com/, there is a form for searching just the
www.elilabs.com site with Alta vista already primed to go. This way you
don't end up embarrassed at asking a very old question, our time isn't
wasted, and you then have a new resource of information.

	What you need to do before submitting a question:

1. Read the FAQ!! (http://www.webforum.de/mgetty-faq.txt)
2. Search the mail-list archive (http://www.elilabs.com/mgarc/)
3. Read your modem manual

What we need when you submit a question:

1. Send everything between the last two #### lines of the mgetty log file
(debug LEVEL 5 or greater)
2. The operating system you are using, with version number
3. Which mgetty/vgetty version you are running
4. Modem type
5. Operating system specials (custom serial driver, unusual serial hardware)


6. If you're experience problems when *sending* faxes, try to find out what
(if anything) came out at the receiving end and the receiving modem type.

Below is an excerpt from the BUGS file and written by Gert. Do yourself a
favor, take a minute and read through it. It explains, very nicely, why we
are asking for the above.

"Hi,
As you may imagine, I get about 10 - 30 mails a day, with questions,
suggestions and bug reports about mgetty. Since very many of those mails
are answered in the manual, or your modem's manual, please make sure that
you have read all those manuals before mailing me (I can get very
unfriendly if the question is clearly answered somewhere in there!).
There's a very detailed section on "Problems common to many modem types" in
the mgetty manual, and still those questions are asked so very frequently :-(
The second type of mails that usually evoke very short and unfriendly
results are bug reports "it does not work" without any information about
the used hardware, modem, what exactly went wrong.
If you have read the manual, and provide all the information, your chances
that I take enough time to closely read your mail and answer it in a
friendly manner are quite high. If some/most of the information is missing,
I sometimes get very unfriendly..."


	Thank you for taking the time to read this material and showing an
interest in the mail-list. I hope that we can assist you quickly and
correctly on the first attempt.

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	Thanks for taking the time. May all your questions be solved easily....



	Griz


May the gods walk with you on all your journeys throught this world, and
the next....