Somebody-whom-I-don't-want-to-pick-on-in-particular writes: > On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:00:34PM -0500, (Some) Poor Fellow wrote: > > Thanks > > please don't > (1) reply to list-posts off-list: send them to the list; > (2) top-post
Given the recent surge in non-traditional list admins (ie, folks without a Unix or mail admin background), I feel this is excessively curt. I don't know about this particular Poor Fellow, but the generic Poor Fellow probably had no idea it wasn't going to the right place (he probably isn't subscribed, either, so he won't notice that he didn't get his own post back). I suggest that better wording is "Please be careful to ensure that your reply is addressed to the list." Actually there should be a FAQ for that in Section 1, so you can add "see FAQ x.yy". I suggest adding this to FAQ 1.22. Something like 1.22 How should I write my post when asking a question on this mailing list? Customs vary on the Internet, and while we [except for the majority of us old Usenet curmudgeons ;-] don't want to impose our customs on the rest of the 'Net, your questions *will* be answered more quickly and helpfully if you observe the following: o The first thing you should do is indicate that you've done your homework. Look at the Mailman documentation linked from http://www.list.org/docs.html. Search the Frequently Asked Questions in the wiki. Search the archives of the mailing list (see "How do I search the archives of the mailman-users mailing list?"). Once you've looked through all the relevant pieces of documentation, FAQ entries, archive messages, etc... and you still haven't found your answer, please give us additional information as well as the question itself. See FAQ . Specifically, we would like to know: 1. What methods did you use to look through the documentation and search the FAQ, mailing list archives, etc...? 2. If there were things that initially sounded relevant but ended up not being useful to you, which ones were they? If you did miss something that is relevant, then having this information will help us go back and improve the documentation/FAQ/etc... so that the next person who does the same search will hopefully hit the correct answer. In addition, we would appreciate it if you could provide URLs and precise descriptions of the information you found but which was not helpful to you. o If you have a specific/detailed question, please proceed to FAQ entry 1.23 at "I have a specific-detailed question -- What kind of information do I need to provide when posting a question to this mailing list?" See also FAQ entry 4.78 "Troubleshooting- No mail going out to lists members." With this information, we are much more likely to be able to provide you assistance with your question. o Be careful to ensure that your reply is addressed to the list. The widespread practice of "Reply-To munging" is *not* implemented on our lists because it makes it difficult (and sometimes impossible) to send a private reply. Because this need is frequent in working on Mailman issues (many questions involve details of network and host configuration that could be used by crackers to compromise security), we do not set Reply-To to the list. (Reply-To munging is not a good idea in most cases; see Chip Rosenthal's essay "Reply-To Munging Considered Harmful".) o It is a very good idea to subscribe to the list, or at least follow the thread in the archives. For various reasons, related posts may *not* be addressed to you, but only to the list. It would be a shame if you missed them. o Once you've sent your post, *wait* at least 48 hours for it to be forwarded to you or appear in the archives before assuming it got lost. Because we must allow non-members to post, we are relatively vulnerable to spam, and the lists are *moderated* by rather busy volunteers. Also, make sure that any spamblocking software you have is *off* for a while; you will get no sympathy at all if you block a reply (and note you don't know where it will come from, because the respondent may feel that the required information is sensitive, and should not be discussed in public -- see #2 above). No sympathy for the delay itself, and many of the less frequent contributors will ignore you completely thereafter. (The core people will still take care of you, but about half the useful answers come from the peanut gallery -- it's a significant resource.) o Avoid top-posting (adding a quick comment to the top of a message, leaving the automatically included quoted block intact. The people who provide the best answers are used to a style in which irrelevant details in the quote are *trimmed* (deleted), and in which responses to specific points appear *inline*, ie, immediately below the statements or questions they refer to. We don't ask you to like this style; however, it is a fact that most of us will be irritated if we scan to the bottom of a long quote and discover we just wasted as little as 5 seconds doing so. In general, conforming to the practices of "Netiquette" will smooth the path to resolving your Mailman issues. It's not just a matter of conforming to the "peculiar institutions" of the Mailman community: these practices are actually more effective in this context. [needs URL for netiquette] Sorry, I'm Confluence-differently-abled at the moment. Assuming nobody thinks this is a terrible idea, I'll eventually get to posting this myself, but if somebody wants to speed up the process, I wouldn't object. :-) In case it's not obvious, stuff in [square brackets] should not be cut/pasted to the FAQ. ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org