FAQ: Getting Help

How do I do X? Why doesn’t Y work? Where can I go to get help?

If this FAQ doesn’t contain an answer to your question, you might want to try the django-users mailing list. Feel free to ask any question related to installing, using, or debugging Django.

If you prefer IRC, the #django IRC channel on the Freenode IRC network is an active community of helpful individuals who may be able to solve your problem.

Why hasn’t my message appeared on django-users?

django-users has a lot of subscribers. This is good for the community, as it means many people are available to contribute answers to questions. Unfortunately, it also means that django-users is an attractive target for spammers.

In order to combat the spam problem, when you join the django-users mailing list, we manually moderate the first message you send to the list. This means that spammers get caught, but it also means that your first question to the list might take a little longer to get answered. We apologize for any inconvenience that this policy may cause.

Nobody on django-users answered my question! What should I do?

Try making your question more specific, or provide a better example of your problem.

As with most open-source mailing lists, the folks on django-users are volunteers. If nobody has answered your question, it may be because nobody knows the answer, it may be because nobody can understand the question, or it may be that everybody that can help is busy. One thing you might try is to ask the question on IRC – visit the #django IRC channel on the Freenode IRC network.

You might notice we have a second mailing list, called django-developers – but please don’t email support questions to this mailing list. This list is for discussion of the development of Django itself. Asking a tech support question there is considered quite impolite.

I think I’ve found a bug! What should I do?

Detailed instructions on how to handle a potential bug can be found in our Guide to contributing to Django.

I think I’ve found a security problem! What should I do?

If you think you’ve found a security problem with Django, please send a message to [e-mail]. This is a private list only open to long-time, highly trusted Django developers, and its archives are not publicly readable.

Due to the sensitive nature of security issues, we ask that if you think you have found a security problem, please don’t send a message to one of the public mailing lists. Django has a policy for handling security issues; while a defect is outstanding, we would like to minimize any damage that could be inflicted through public knowledge of that defect.