[arch-general] Mailing list posting style (was: [aur-general] Compiz package naming)

[Florian Pritz]

Hi,

Disclaimer: I'm trying to write this as friendly as possible, but I want
to get the point across so please excuse slightly harsh wording and the
length of the mail.

Please understand that this mail is directed to all list members, not
only those who participated in the thread on aur-general.


It happens every now and then, but this thread is probably one of the
worse ones. I know it's sometimes easy to forget, but a 16 level deep
quote with 420+ lines of quoted content and about 6 lines of original
content is not, by any stretch of imagination, okay.


Please do not quote the entire thread in every reply and do not reply
above the quote(s). A general rule of thumb is to quote only what's
necessary to understand the reply.

If you need context, please use bottom-posting or IMHO better yet
interleaved quoting[1] (I also suggest to read the entire page) and
limit your quote to as few lines as possible/necessary. Also feel free
to summarise the original mails or write your reply in such a way that
it can be understood without context which means that you can omit the
quote entirely.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

Please also be aware that some mail clients will add line breaks after
80 characters and original text is normally wrapped after ~72 which
means you get about 4 levels of quoting until text starts wrapping which
makes it very hard to read.

Generally, if your reply is shorter than the quoted message you might do
something wrong. If you quote the entire message you likely do something
wrong. If you quote the entire thread for 16 levels you *really* do
something very wrong, no exception here, sorry.


Also if you need any proof try to read this message[2] without reading
the original messages directly (only read the quotes in the linked
message). Note that the start of the thread is somewhere in the middle
(you can search for "Hello AUR general & Compiz package maintainers")
thanks to top/bottom/interleaved quoting styles being mixed.

[2]
https://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/2014-August/029292.html


I'm also sending this to arch-general as a reminder because I've seen a
few topposters/fullquoters there as well.

Let's please all work together here so something like this doesn't
happen again. If you see this happening in a thread that you participate
in, please speak up (early) and make sure your own reply breaks the chain.

Thanks for your consideration,
Florian

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