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Guidelines
Effective communication on our mailing lists
The primary goal of our lists are to have useful and enjoyable
discussions. Good manners are important, both being civil and
conforming to a style of writing and replying that helps us talk. This
is called netiquette and its use will help you to become a well
respected member of this community.
You might be thinking "why should I do this netiquette thing?", a
leading question if ever there was one and thanks for asking it. The
goal here is effective communication and this will help you do that
here. We have borrowed a set of rules from the Usenet community that
has proven to be very successful in getting people to communicate across
space and time (no joke). We also want to be able to do these things
here. What you gain by using these rules is to influence people to help
you by showing respect for their time. You are not being rude and this
helps you solve your problems because over time you will get more and
better answers. This is because many of us are very busy, you to
probably, and if it takes too much time and effort we will not bother to
read your posts. And it is just that simple.
Now here is how we do it, its really simple:
Time
Operate under the assumption that other people`s time is more
valuable then yours, it just good manners after all.
Attitude
NYCBUG`s theme is "A forum for discussion and a bridge for learning".
This means we operate under different guidelines than other *BSD mailing
lists. Please be understanding to newbie questions and do not slam less
informed users or accuse them of trolling. Remember: Discussion is
encouraged, BASHING is not. Bridging is encouraged, RTFM is not.
Quote your message
with a '>' in the first column of the text you are replying to,
and this can be done in most mail packages, including Outlook.
Please do not top post.
Top Posting refers to responding to a message from the top of the
response email. While this is often the convention for many email
discussions and is also the default for most end-user mail applications,
it is inconvenient for the many who follow the list with text-based mail
user agents (MUAs), such as Pine and Mutt. When responding to a
message, please begin your response at the bottom of the message or
below the first part you want to comment on and work your way down.
Please quote to what you are responding to.
Quoting in a response is a natural and often necessary feature in
mailing list discussions. It is encouraged so that it is clear to
anyone jumping mid-way during a discussion can see what exactly you are
responding to, and they do not have to remember or refer to the original
posts. Quoting is also necessary to verify the validity of your
response.
For example, if you are having a hard argument about one topic or
another, and are not quoting the person you are responding to, how do we
know you are accurately and fairly responding?
But there is
generally absolutely no need to keep the entire message text intact.
Just keep enough of the parts that you are replying to so that the rest
of us have some context and can figure out what you are saying. Here is
a helpful guide to quoting.
Personal disagreements:
If you want to have a hissy fit, please do not do it here. If it
become a problem we will take the proper measures to have peace
restored. We are here for a purpose and that is not it.
Personal attacks and profanity (in the context of an argument) are
not allowed, and that includes users and admins alike. Gross breaches
of netiquette, like excerpting or reposting private mail when permission
to do so was not and would not be forthcoming, are frowned upon but not
specifically enforced. However, there are also very few cases where
such content would fit within the charter of a list and it would
therefore probably rate a warning (or ban) on that basis alone.
Ask well thought-out questions.
If it looks like you took time to write a well formed, researched and
thought out question the rest of us are much more likely to help you and
will probably do it quicker and/or get it right on the first time. As
any technical person can tell you it is not the fixing that takes the
time it the finding whats broken. So please help us find whats broken.
Advertising
Advertising of non-NYCBUG related products or services is strictly
prohibited and will result in an immediate ban if it is clear that the
offender is advertising by spam.