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.

2 files changed, 180 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/docs/MAIL-ETIQUETTE b/docs/MAIL-ETIQUETTE
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+                                  _   _ ____  _
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+                             / __| | | | |_) | |
+                            | (__| |_| |  _ <| |___
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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.
+
diff --git a/docs/Makefile.am b/docs/Makefile.am
index 316b4f4f0..982877b47 100644
--- a/docs/Makefile.am
+++ b/docs/Makefile.am
@@ -16,7 +16,8 @@ CLEANFILES = $(GENHTMLPAGES) $(PDFPAGES)
 EXTRA_DIST = MANUAL BUGS CONTRIBUTE FAQ FEATURES INTERNALS SSLCERTS	 \
  README.win32 RESOURCES TODO TheArtOfHttpScripting THANKS VERSIONS	 \
  KNOWN_BUGS BINDINGS $(man_MANS) $(HTMLPAGES) HISTORY INSTALL		 \
- $(PDFPAGES) LICENSE-MIXING README.netware DISTRO-DILEMMA INSTALL.devcpp
+ $(PDFPAGES) LICENSE-MIXING README.netware DISTRO-DILEMMA INSTALL.devcpp \
+ MAIL-ETIQUETTE
 
 MAN2HTML= roffit < $< >$@