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authorDaniel Stenberg <daniel@haxx.se>2011-03-22 09:20:42 +0100
committerDaniel Stenberg <daniel@haxx.se>2011-03-22 09:23:04 +0100
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tree8f3fd24470323288150e5d2e164cbc3a05c9bb9a /docs/MAIL-ETIQUETTE
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downloadcurl-0addc5718883a939ea6e598473691e95cdd34420.tar.gz
MAIL-ETIQUETTE: how to behave
This is a new documentation for the source tree. This information has been present since a long time at http://curl.haxx.se/mail/etiquette.html but now it is put into a plain text version too for wider distribution. The web version will be automatically generated from this source document.
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+
+MAIL ETIQUETTE
+
+ 1. About the lists
+ 1.1 Netiquette
+ 1.2 Do Not Mail a Single Individual
+ 1.3 Subscription Required
+ 1.4 Moderation of new posters
+
+ 2. Sending mail
+ 2.1 Reply or New Mail
+ 2.2 Reply to the List
+ 2.3 Use a Sensible Subject
+ 2.4 Do Not Top-Post
+ 2.5 HTML is not for mails
+ 2.6 Quoting
+ 2.7 Digest
+ 2.8 Please Tell Us How You Solved The Problem!
+
+==============================================================================
+
+1. About the lists
+
+ 1.1 Netiquette
+
+ Netiquette is a common name for how to behave on the internet. Of course, in
+ each particular group and subculture there will be differences in what is
+ acceptable and what is considered good manners.
+
+ This document outlines what we in the cURL project considers to be good
+ etiquette, and primarily this focus on how to behave on and how to use our
+ mailing lists.
+
+ 1.2 Do Not Mail a Single Individual
+
+ Many people send one question to one person. One person gets many mails, and
+ there is only one person who can give you a reply. The question may be
+ something that other people are also wanting to ask. These other people have
+ no way to read the reply, but to ask the one person the question. The one
+ person consequently gets overloaded with mail.
+
+ If you really want to contact an individual and perhaps pay for his or her's
+ services, by all means go ahead, but if it's just another curl question,
+ take it to a suitable list instead.
+
+ 1.3 Subscription Required
+
+ All curl mailing lists require that you are subscribed to allow a mail to go
+ through to all the subscribers.
+
+ If you post without being subscribed (or from a different mail address than
+ the one you are subscribed with), your mail will simply be silently
+ discarded. You have to subscribe first, then post.
+
+ The reason for this unfortunate and strict subscription policy is of course
+ to stop spam from pestering the lists.
+
+ 1.4 Moderation of new posters
+
+ Several of the curl mailing lists automatically make all posts from new
+ subscribers require moderation. This means that after you've subscribed and
+ send your first mail to a list, that mail will not be let through to the
+ list until a mailing list administrator has verified that it is OK and
+ permits it to get posted.
+
+ Once a first post has been made that proves the sender is actually talking
+ about curl-related subjects, the moderation "flag" will be switched off and
+ future posts will go through without being moderated.
+
+ The reason for this moderation policy is that we do suffer from spammers who
+ actually subscribe and send spam to our lists.
+
+
+2. Sending mail
+
+ 2.1 Reply or New Mail
+
+ Please do not reply to an existing message as a short-cut to post a message
+ to the lists.
+
+ Many mail programs and web archivers use information within mails to keep
+ them together as "threads", as collections of posts that discuss a certain
+ subject. If you don't intend to reply on the same or similar subject, don't
+ just hit reply on an existing mail and change subject, create a new mail.
+
+ 2.2 Reply to the List
+
+ When replying to a message from the list, make sure that you do "group
+ reply" or "reply to all", and not just reply to the author of the single
+ mail you reply to.
+
+ We're actively discouraging replying back to the single person by setting
+ the Reply-To: field in outgoing mails back to the mailing list address,
+ making it harder for people to mail the author only by mistake.
+
+ 2.3 Use a Sensible Subject
+
+ Please use a subject of the mail that makes sense and that is related to the
+ contents of your mail. It makes it a lot easier to find your mail afterwards
+ and it makes it easier to track mail threads and topics.
+
+ 2.4 Do Not Top-Post
+
+ If you reply to a message, don't use top-posting. Top-posting is when you
+ write the new text at the top of a mail and you insert the previous quoted
+ mail conversation below. It forces users to read the mail in a backwards
+ order to properly understand it.
+
+ This is why top posting is so bad:
+
+ A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read
+ text.
+ Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
+ A: Top-posting.
+ Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
+
+ Apart from the screwed up read order (especially when mixed together in a
+ thread when some responds doing the mandaded bottom-posting style), it also
+ makes it impossible to quote only parts of the original mail.
+
+ When you reply to a mail. You let the mail client insert the previous mail
+ quoted. Then you put the cursor on the first line of the mail and you move
+ down through the mail, deleting all parts of the quotes that don't add
+ context for your comments. When you want to add a comment you do so, inline,
+ right after the quotes that relate to your comment. Then you continue
+ downwards again.
+
+ When most of the quotes have been removed and you've added your own words,
+ you're done!
+
+ 2.5 HTML is not for mails
+
+ Please switch off those HTML encoded messages. You can mail all those funny
+ mails to your friends. We speak plain text mails.
+
+ 2.6 Quoting
+
+ Quote as little as possible. Just enough to provide the context you cannot
+ leave out. A lengthy description can be found here:
+
+ http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
+
+ 2.7 Digest
+
+ We allow subscribers to subscribe to the "digest" version of the mailing
+ lists. A digest is a collection of mails lumped together in one single mail.
+
+ Should you decide to reply to a mail sent out as a digest, there are two
+ things you MUST consider if you really really cannot subscribe normally
+ instead:
+
+ Cut off all mails and chatter that is not related to the mail you want to
+ reply to.
+
+ Change the subject name to something sensible and related to the subject,
+ preferably even the actual subject of the single mail you wanted to reply to
+
+ 2.8 Please Tell Us How You Solved The Problem!
+
+ Many people mail questions to the list, people spend some of their time and
+ make an effort in providing good answers to these questions.
+
+ If you are the one who asks, please consider responding once more in case
+ one of the hints was what solved your problems. The guys who write answers
+ feel good to know that they provided a good answer and that you fixed the
+ problem. Far too often, the person who asked the question is never heard of
+ again, and we never get to know if he/she is gone because the problem was
+ solved or perhaps because the problem was unsolvable!
+
+ Getting the solution posted also helps other users that experience the same
+ problem(s). They get to see (possibly in the web archives) that the
+ suggested fixes actually has helped at least one person.
+