List etiquette.

List etiquette.

[David Woodhouse]

I've recently found myself having to inspect and reject a lot of crap
which the list filters have caught, so it's time to rant about it a
little... :)

Please read http://www.infradead.org/~dwmw2/email.html

In particular, please ensure that you use a sensible mail reader which
inserts References: and/or In-Reply-To: headers such that threading
works correctly. Please ensure that you do not try to start a new thread
by just replying to an existing list message and changing the subject,
for similar reasons. And don't send HTML.


-- 
dwmw2

Re: List etiquette.

[David Woodhouse]

On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 10:15, David Woodhouse wrote:
> I've recently found myself having to inspect and reject a lot of crap
> which the list filters have caught, so it's time to rant about it a
> little... :)
> 
> Please read http://www.infradead.org/~dwmw2/email.html
> 
> In particular, please ensure that you use a sensible mail reader which
> inserts References: and/or In-Reply-To: headers such that threading
> works correctly. Please ensure that you do not try to start a new thread
> by just replying to an existing list message and changing the subject,
> for similar reasons. And don't send HTML.

... and don't send stupid unenforceable disclaimers which achieve
nothing but to show the world how clueless your company legal department
is, and don't top-post, and don't set up broken autoresponders which
reply to anywhere other than the SMTP reverse-path.


-- 
dwmw2

Re: List etiquette.

[Jörn Engel]

On Wed, 23 April 2003 10:15:56 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
>
> Please ensure that you do not try to start a new thread
> by just replying to an existing list message and changing the subject,
> for similar reasons.

Why exactly? I kind of like the habit of changing the subject in the
middle of a thread where appropriate, like "foo (was: bar)".

You are the boss, but I'd like to know the rationale.

Jörn

-- 
Eighty percent of success is showing up.
-- Woody Allen

Re: List etiquette.

[Russ Dill]

On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 13:40, Jörn Engel wrote:
> On Wed, 23 April 2003 10:15:56 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> >
> > Please ensure that you do not try to start a new thread
> > by just replying to an existing list message and changing the subject,
> > for similar reasons.
> 
> Why exactly? I kind of like the habit of changing the subject in the
> middle of a thread where appropriate, like "foo (was: bar)".

He doesn't mean a topic change like, "There is a bug in tool foo blah
blah blah" "I like that tool, but I use tool bar blah blah blah" "(New
subject) did you know how to do x in tool bar?"

He means "I have an oops when I use foo with bar" "(reply) Where can I
find the latest CVS snapshot?"

Lazy people, not sensible topic shifting

Re: List etiquette.

[Jörn Engel]

On Wed, 23 April 2003 13:51:05 -0700, Russ Dill wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 13:40, Jörn Engel wrote:
> > 
> > Why exactly? I kind of like the habit of changing the subject in the
> > middle of a thread where appropriate, like "foo (was: bar)".
> 
> He doesn't mean a topic change like, "There is a bug in tool foo blah
> blah blah" "I like that tool, but I use tool bar blah blah blah" "(New
> subject) did you know how to do x in tool bar?"
> 
> He means "I have an oops when I use foo with bar" "(reply) Where can I
> find the latest CVS snapshot?"

Well, my NOSPAM SH*T rant ended up in the spam folder until David
manually accepted it. So my best gues of what he means is "don't do
anything that creates work for me". And since the spam filter rules
are the way they are,...

But I don't want to second-guess what other people really meant.

Jörn

-- 
With a PC, I always felt limited by the software available. On Unix, 
I am limited only by my knowledge.
-- Peter J. Schoenster

Re: List etiquette.

[Grant Edwards]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2003 at 10:40:37PM +0200, Jörn Engel wrote:
> On Wed, 23 April 2003 10:15:56 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> >
> > Please ensure that you do not try to start a new thread
> > by just replying to an existing list message and changing the subject,
> > for similar reasons.
> 
> Why exactly? I kind of like the habit of changing the subject in the
> middle of a thread where appropriate, like "foo (was: bar)".
> 
> You are the boss, but I'd like to know the rationale.

If you don't change the In-Reply-To: header, a decent MUA will
thread the new article with the old thread.  It doesn't belong
there (or you wouldn't have changed the topic).

If you want to reply to a message and start a new thread, make
sure you remove the In-Reply-To: header also.  That way you'll
be starting a new thread -- which one must presume is your
intention when you change the Subject: header.

-- 
Grant Edwards
grante@visi.com

Re: List etiquette.

[Jörn Engel]

On Thu, 24 April 2003 09:47:09 -0500, Grant Edwards wrote:
> 
> If you don't change the In-Reply-To: header, a decent MUA will
> thread the new article with the old thread.  It doesn't belong
> there (or you wouldn't have changed the topic).

Well, if I didn't want the reference to the old thread, I wouldn't
reply in the first place. The subject has shifted already, the subject
header simply makes this clear for everyone who might want to ignore
that sub-thread now. But as long as I quote from the original thread,
I personally think that it should remain in it.

Opinions vary, though.

> If you want to reply to a message and start a new thread, make
> sure you remove the In-Reply-To: header also.

And references.

Yes, sometimes it makes sense to start a new thread, for psychological
reasons. But usually the subject of the mail contents doesn't fit the
subject anymore and the author simply let's other people know before
they have to read it.

Anyway, I will just keep the Re: and think twice. :)

Jörn

-- 
Correctness comes second.
Features come third.
Performance comes last.
Maintainability is needed for all of them.