[wplug] Re: A gentle reminder on posting etiquette

[Bill Moran]

In response to "Greg Simkins" <gregsim at telerama.com>:

> From: "Bill Moran" <wmoran at potentialtech.com> sez....
> 
> We should probably post links to some well-written rules on list etiquette 
> on the web site so we have something to direct people to.
> 
> Greg Sez....
> 
> Is it really etiquette or are we trying to minimize duplication for the 
> email digest?  I have a hard time being offended over whether comments are 
> posted at the top or bottom.  It is good to keep the messages short for the 
> purposes of following it.
> 
> In my little microsoft world, I am very accustomed to hitting the reply 
> button and typing above the entire thread.  In fact, I get horribly confused 
> when I get email from folks at AOL which seems to default to drop the 
> previous parts of the thread and I can be totally lost over what the subject 
> of the comment is.
> 
> So please clarify whether the rules you are debating are to avoid some sort 
> of offense or to save bytes of storage on the WPLUG mail server.

I don't know that there's any "offense" occurring, except maybe in
Jonathan's case. ;)

Storage is one issue, but I don't think it's the largest one.  Nor do I
think that bandwidth usage is a major issue.

I know, for me at least, that the most important factor is _my_ time.  I
sort through over 300 emails on an average day.  Nothing is more frustrating
than when people post in a way that makes that process more difficult than
it has to be.  OK, maybe there are some things more frustrating than that,
but not many.

Personally, RFC-1855 (recommended by Jonathan) is probably the best read on
this, including the reasons why.  It's not terribly technical, and it's
actually rather interesting to read.  A lovely HTML version is here:
http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html#3

-- 
Bill Moran
Collaborative Fusion Inc.