[Mailman-Developers] Putting the FAQ link in with error messages?

[Barry Warsaw]

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On Mar 28, 2009, at 11:10 PM, Terri Oda wrote:

> We often *have* the answers in the FAQ, people aren't always finding  
> them there, often because it hasn't occurred to them to look.
>
> I was mentioned this to the last person who I helped with a Mailman  
> problem, and he offered this brilliant suggestion: Why don't we  
> print the FAQ (or at least the wiki link) with error messages  
> generated by mailman?
>
> Just a quick "For more information on this error, consult the  
> documentation at http://wiki.list.org/x/Bw" or something along those  
> lines.
>
> I know, it's another line of work for the translators, and it won't  
> solve the problems that aren't heralded by error messages, but  
> hopefully it'll result in more people actually finding the  
> information they need on their own!

This is a very interesting idea.  When you say "error messages" do you  
mean e.g. Python tracebacks and such?  In that case, we may not have  
to worry about translators, for example we don't translate log messages.

It would mean going through various exceptions that Mailman raises and  
adding information to tie it to a FAQ entry (or as you point out, more  
easily just the top wiki link).  Tougher would be to attach FAQ links  
to exceptions that Python throws that percolate up to the top  
interpreter loop.  Still, it's a really interesting idea to pursue,  
and it would make for a neat general Python facility.

Barry

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