On Thu, 2022-09-22 at 09:20 -0400, Kevin Cole wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Since most lists that I'm on seem to consist of messages that begin as a
> question, followed by replies attempting to answer the question or gather
> more information, a subject line consisting of nothing but the word
> "question" is pretty useless.
>
> So, a gentle nudge to some: Try to come up with a concise subject line that
> summarizes the actual question, please. No need to include the word
> "question" (in most cases, I suspect, though there's always an exception to
> a rule somewhere).
>
> Thanks!
Absolutely true!
For more on making email communication easier and more straightforward,
everybody
who speaks English should read the following document:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Also, the LyX list was the list I remember that introduced itself to the MWE,
the
minimal example necessary to produce the symptom. Using an MWE makes the cause
obvious to those in the know, and if your life is like mine, by the time you've
created the MWE, the root cause is obvious to you so you needn't post the
question
at all.
I can add some things:
* Don't top-post in a group discussion: It breaks relationships between
questions
and answers.
* Instead, interleave post, where you answer each question directly below the
question. This way all know which question the answer is answering.
* If you simply must top post in a group discussion, instead of using pronouns,
reproduce exactly what you're talking about. Those who top-post "I agree, and
furthermore the foo should come earlier" leave the ambiguities: 1) With whom
does he
agree and about what, and 2) The foo should come earlier than what?
* When you email a lot of questions, anticipate top posters, and number your
questions so the top poster can at least use those numbers to link the answer
to the
question.
* Nothing I've said here implies you shouldn't follow the usual and customary
business email standard of top posting in order to preserve every assertion and
cover everybody's ass.
* Whether you top post or not, remove all context quotes not relevant to what
you're
saying. This makes your meaning much clearer, and removes the task of reading
through hundreds or thousands of moot words. The #1 argument FOR top-posting in
mailinng lists is people don't want to go through hundreds or thousands of words
just to get to what you say. This is a valid argument, but if you remove
unneeded
context quotes this argument ceases to be a problem.
* For free software centric mailing lists, for gosh sakes use plain text, not
html.
* Make sure your email client does quoting in a way that different peoples'
contributions are identified by indents or color or whatever their email client
does. There's nothing like reading an email with same-level quoting, in which it
looks like the poster is arguing with himself and you can't tell who said what.
By the way, most of what I mention above applies to any group discussion: email,
forums, slack, stackoverflow, or others.
SteveT
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