List Rules

[Jonathan Berry]

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 20:47:30 -0700, James McKenzie
<jjmckenzie51 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> All:
> 
> Here is the first edition of the List Rules.

Nice work here James.

> The first thing is that I, like you, are a regular member of the list
> but have read through many messages about 'netequitte' within this list.

[snip]
> 2.  Place your replies at the bottom of messages.  This is an old method
> used for many years.  Preface any text to be replied to with a
> character, most folks use a greater than sign '>' but any special
> printable character will suffice.

Maybe you should mention that this is the default for most mail client
when using plain text messages (the prefixing stuff).  Also, you might
mention to trim parts of the message that you are not replying to
directly.  There have been a couple of suggestions here that I liked,
such as place your reply below the text you are replying to (this
works with in-text replies) and the suggested verbiage changes works
well too.

[snip]
> this release, including making Secure Linux (SELinux) a default.

Minor thing, but SELinux is Security-Enhanced Linux :).

[snip]
> 5.  To unsubscibe from the list you can visit the Fedora Mail List web
> page at http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

Perhaps add here, "so please do not send 'unsubscribe' requests to the list" :)

Another couple of things come to mind.  Along with the choosing a good
subject bit suggested already, make sure if you use digest mode to
change the subject appropriately, and do not quote the entire digest
message.  Perhaps we should discourage the use of digest mode, since
it seems to be counter-productive in most instances.

Also maybe something about changing the subject if and only if the
topic of the thread changes.  At least for me, small changes in the
subject line cause Gmail to treat it as another thread and that can be
annoying to have bits a pieces to a thread in different spots.  This
isn't really a mainstream one, but I thought I'd throw it out there to
see what people thought.

I really think we need to have some rules here.  I know I had never
heard the term top-posting before it was mentioned on the list, as
well as several other netiquette terms mentioned here.  How are people
going to know they are not doing things right if they are never told? 
If I help someone out who has sent HTML mail or top-posted, I always
try to send them a little PS to let them know about it.  I don't think
people should send emails to the list only telling someone that they
are not following proper netiquette.  If you are going to do that,
send the email off-list, directly to the person.  Those are my
thoughts on the "list cop" accusations.

Jonathan