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# Analog 6.0: Mailing lists

I welcome mail about analog, both praise and bug reports! I and others are also usually happy to help people who have trouble with analog: it helps me to find bugs, and know where the documentation is unclear.

If your statistics are provided by someone else, for example your web hosting company, you should normally get support from them. They're the only ones who can configure analog to your specifications.

There are three mailing lists for analog.

`analog-announce`
  Announcements about analog. I post to this when there are new versions, for example. Only gets a few messages a year. You can join this list by filling in the form at http://lists.meer.net/mailman/listinfo/analog-announce
`analog-help`
  Getting help with analog from experienced users. This is the place to go if you have trouble setting up or configuring the program. Usually you will get a swift reply. You have to subscribe to the list before you can send a message. This is necessary to deter spammers. You can subscribe at http://lists.meer.net/mailman/listinfo/analog-help
  You can also read this list as a forum (but not post) or as a newsgroup.
`analog-author`
  This just goes to me. Use for private comments, or other things that would not be suitable for the `analog-help` list. I'm pretty bad at answering my mail, so don't expect a swift reply. Don't use this address for user support questions: they will be ignored.

There is also an independent Japanese analog mailing list. And there are also companies offering support for analog on a commercial basis: you can find a list of them on the analog home page.

If you want to get help with analog, please check the following simple things first. (For articles on how to ask in such a way that you'll get a useful answer, I recommend Eric Raymond's How To Ask Questions The Smart Way and Simon Tatham's How to Report Bugs Effectively.)

1. Read the FAQ. Maybe I've answered your question already. If I have, I'll just direct you to the FAQ, not answer it again.
2. If analog produced some error messages when it ran, they probably indicate what went wrong. Read the section on Errors and warnings.
3. If your question is "Will this command have that effect?", why not try it and see!
4. If you think you've found a bug, read the list of known bugs at my site, to see if your bug is already known about.
5. Read the other relevant pages of the Readme, particularly the sections on Starting to use analog and Customising analog. You may also find the index useful. We don't appreciate people who are too lazy to read the documentation. (If the documentation is unclear, or the relevant paragraph is too well hidden, then that's a different matter. Of course I want to know about that.)
6. Have a look in the web archives of the mailing list to see if your question has already been answered there.
7. If analog isn't doing what you thought you asked it to, then run it with the `SETTINGS ON` configuration command, and see what options it thinks it's meant to be using.

I'm sorry to be so fussy, but a lot of the mail on the list really needn't have been sent at all, and just wastes the time of everybody on the list. As I say, I really do welcome genuine mail.

If you still need help, subscribe to the to the analog-help mailing list using the form at http://lists.meer.net/mailman/listinfo/analog-help, and then send your mail to analog-help@lists.meer.net. Please do the following when you send mail to the list.

1. Describe exactly what you did, what you expected, and what the computer did. Include the exact text of any error messages, not a précis.
2. Mention which version of analog you are using, on which operating system.
3. Although you should obey the first two points, you should also try and send a short message. Most people don't bother to read long messages.
4. Give your mail a subject line which indicates immediately what aspect of analog it is about. (This is useful for the archives).
5. Do not send long files or attachments unless you're asked to. We do not want to see your configuration file, your header file, your output file, or any logfile over 10 lines long. They are almost always useless to us. And anyway, excessively long messages will be rejected by the mailing list server.

If you want to send a private message to me, you can send it to me at analog-author@lists.meer.net. Please don't use this address for user support questions: I don't have time to answer them, and I'll just ignore them.

There are several web archives of the analog-help list. You can find them at these places:

- http://lists.meer.net/pipermail/analog-help/
- http://news.gmane.org/thread.php?group=gmane.comp.web.analog.general
- http://www.mail-archive.com/analog-help@lists.meer.net/

You can also find archives of the analog-announce list at

- http://lists.meer.net/pipermail/analog-announce/
- http://news.gmane.org/thread.php?group=gmane.comp.web.analog.announce

If you prefer Usenet format, you can also read the groups as newsgroups at

- news://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.analog.general
- news://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.analog.announce

Many thanks to meer.net for providing these mailing lists for me, to GMane for the mail-to-news gateways, and to all those who provide list archives.

Go to the analog home page.

Need help with analog? Use the analog-help mailing list.

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