[vox] Re: [vox-announce] New mailing list rules

[Henry House]

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P=E5 tisdag, 25 maj 2004, skrev Ken Bloom:
> Just a couple comments.

Thanks for you comments!

> On 2004.05.24 07:06, Henry House wrote:
> >	 b. Don't send email attachments
> >
> >		 Never send attachments GPG signatures are OK) to the
>=20
> You appear to be missing open-parens before "GPG signatures".

It is there on the web version; I think I accidentally deleted the opening
paren when I manually reformatted the rule changes for vox-announce.

[...]
> >	 {+2.+} Off-Topic postings
> >
> >		 When posting a message that isn't particularly
> >		 related to Linux or the club, please prepend "[OT]"
> >		 (short for "Off-Topic") to the message's subject
> >		 line. (eg, "[OT] Dr. Who convention").  To help
> >		 reduce traffic, if you notice that a particular list
> >		 is having a high-volume day, please refrain from
> >		 posting off-topic messages altogether.
>=20
> In practice, this applies only to vox. If something's OT for vox-tech,
> it generally ends up on vox.

This is often true but I can think of cases (e.g., someone wants help with
windows) that are off-topic for vox-tech but still fit better there than on
vox.

> >	 {+3. Do not start a new thread by replying to an unrelated
> >	 message Do not post a message that starts a new line of
> >	 discussion (thread) by replying to someone else's post and
> >	 changing the subject. Instead, use the 'compose new message'
> >	 or whatever equivalent command your mailer provides.
>=20
> The rules should probably mention the fact that most vox-* users
> use mail clients that can arrange threading into a nice tree to make
> it easy to follow the discussion and see who replied to who. Point out
> that this is annoying because it defeats this feature of the email
> client. (It's most likely that the people who reply to messages to
> start a new thread do so because they aren't aware of email clients
> that organize messages by thread, and they don't run such an email
> client.)

I probably should mention this, since it is the motivation for the rule.
Ken: I inserted your explanatory paragraph, with a few modifications. This
section now reads:

----
	Do not post a message that starts a new line of discussion (thread) by
replying to someone else's post and changing the subject. Instead, use the
'compose new message' or whatever equivalent command your mailer
provides.<p>
     =20
	An example of this is asking a question, "How can I learn how to run a
web server on Linux?" by replying to a message on "Re: Compiling PostgreSQL
=66rom source on Debian". The two posts are completely unrelated. On the ot=
her
hand, it is a good practice to change the subject line when the discussion
in a thread drifts to a new (but related) topic.<p>
     =20
	A good test it this: did you quote relevant discussion in your new
message and author a response to it? If the previous discussion was
irrelevant to your new post, then you should start a new thread using
'compose new message', not 'reply'.<p>
  =20
	The reason for this rule is that most vox* readers use mail clients that
can arrange message threads into a nice tree using the <tt>References</tt>
header of each message to make it easy to follow the discussion and see who
replied to whom. When you break this rule by using 'reply' when you should
use 'compose new message', you confuse and annoy these people because it
defeats this feature of the e-mail clients and the <tt>References</tt>
headers of messages. It is likely that the people who mistakenly reply to
messages to start a new thread do so because they aren't aware of email
clients that organize messages by thread, and they don't run such an email
client.<p>
---- =20

This section is now dangerously long though. Can anyone suggest how to
condense it?=20

--=20
Henry House
The unintelligible text that may follow is a digital signature.
See <http://hajhouse.org/pgp> to find out how to verify it.
My OpenPGP key: <http://hajhouse.org/hajhouse.asc>.


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