'Twas brillig, and Piscium at 07/06/10 10:14 did gyre and gimble: > This is the first time ever anyone asks me to post top, bottom or > otherwise. No problem. I just wonder if this is a forum rule, and if > so, if there are more like this as I would rather not unwittingly > infringe them. Most mailing lists for open source projects tend to follow the same general rules. Some lists are more strict than others (to the extent that people will simply not answer any questions you ask until it's posted correct!). We're not super strict here but we do like to give friendly reminders/initial guidance. As many of the developer are subscribed to 40+ mailing lists, reading the messages and separating out what you are interested in, verses what is irrelevent to you is often tricky. This is why a uniform style and presentation is so highly desirable. If everything is formatted in (largely) the same way, it's much quicker to scan over various messages in various different lists. This is also a contributing factor as to why mailing lists are preferred over web-based forums - it's much quicker to check a mail inbox (or NNTP feed from the likes of GMane.org) than visit several separate websites. Generally speaking, you can't go wrong on open source/development mailing lists if you: 1. Use plain text: html and personal styling breaks the default look and feel and slows down reading for regulars. 2. Do not top post, it's better to strip out a small, relevant section of the mail to which you are replying and address that point specifically. If you need to address several points, do so with appropriate quoting and trimming of quoted text. This is how email started and it was only when business folks got involved with crappy email clients that "top posting" became the norm. It's evil and makes reading an email very tricky in a discussion/threaded environment. HTH explain these things (and keep in mind that there are always variations on this!) Take care Col -- Colin Guthrie gmane(at)colin.guthr.ie http://colin.guthr.ie/ Day Job: Tribalogic Limited [http://www.tribalogic.net/] Open Source: Mandriva Linux Contributor [http://www.mandriva.com/] PulseAudio Hacker [http://www.pulseaudio.org/] Trac Hacker [http://trac.edgewall.org/]
