Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Rob Sargent]

Has that ever been a thing? Quoting (and trimming) the message you are
replying to has been normal since at least the late 1980's (when I
started to use E-Mail).

Peter,
My memory of email spans only a slightly larger period but no doubt 
yours is better than mine.  My main reader was emac's rmail until too 
much mail wasn't text.  In my memory you had to turn on quoting the 
original (though irrc rmail had an insert-original command to allow one 
to do it as necessary - and at "point").  I see today that Thunderbird 
sets quoting on by default (per account) but it is optional. But it can 
also display an entire thread in the correct who-replied-to-whom. I get 
that often there's a particular sub-point of the original which needs to 
be at hand in the reply but rarely the entire message - so maybe we're 
back to it's a Netiquette thing (and in my case at least often a 
laziness thing).

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Matthias Apitz]

On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 18:05:34 +0100, Paul Förster wrote:
> Hi Peter,
>
>> On 18. Jan, 2021, at 17:34, Peter J. Holzer  wrote:
>>
>> In 1990, MIME didn't exist. E-Mail was by definition US-ASCII text
>> (except for uuencode or by private arrangement). People often used text
>> terminals and may not have any Internet access.
>
> yes, those were the days! :-) As for people using computers
> these days, I often wish I could go back in time. :-P
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
>

This was my first Internet around 1990: a 1200 baud modem and UUCP for mail and 
News.

matthias


--
Matthias Apitz, ✉ g...@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
Без книги нет знания, без знания нет коммунизма (Влaдимир Ильич Ленин)
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Lenin)
Sin libros no hay saber - sin saber no hay comunismo. (Vladimir Ilich Lenin)

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Paul Förster]

Hi Peter,

> On 18. Jan, 2021, at 17:34, Peter J. Holzer  wrote:
> 
> In 1990, MIME didn't exist. E-Mail was by definition US-ASCII text
> (except for uuencode or by private arrangement). People often used text
> terminals and may not have any Internet access.

yes, those were the days! :-) As for people using computers these days, I often 
wish I could go back in time. :-P

Cheers,
Paul

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Tom Lane]

"Peter J. Holzer"  writes:
> On 2021-01-17 21:25:29 +0100, Matthias Apitz wrote:
>> If someone needs really an image to show a problem, it can be put on
>> some server and the link could be posted, like this one showing a PANIC
>> of a system http://www.unixarea.de/fbsd-panic-20210110.jpg

> That has the disadvantage of not being archived.

Yeah, we actually pretty strongly discourage posts that provide links
to external pages instead of being self-contained.  The PG mailing
list archives go back nearly 25 years at this point, and it's mighty
handy to be able to read old messages without having to constantly
consult the Wayback Machine (and hope it captured $whatever).
There's only a *hard* policy of that sort with respect to patch
submissions; but bug reports are likewise more likely to be taken
seriously and acted on if they don't require looking at external
resources.

regards, tom lane

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Peter J. Holzer]

On 2021-01-17 21:25:29 +0100, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 12:23:23p. m. -0700, David G. Johnston 
> escribió:
> 
> > Its 2021;
> 
> Yes, and for what this argument is good for? Is 2021 better than 2020 or
> even worth?

It's not about being better, but about what infrastructure or
capabilities you can expect. 

In 1990, MIME didn't exist. E-Mail was by definition US-ASCII text
(except for uuencode or by private arrangement). People often used text
terminals and may not have any Internet access.

In 2000, MIME existed, some MUAs supported HTML (at quite different
levels), most people who had Email also had Internet (though they might
not stay online while reading mail to save phone costs) and they would
typically read mail on a bitmapped display (though possibly in a
terminal emulator).

In 2021, MIME is actually implemented correctly in most MUAs, HTML/CSS
is very widely supported (but not nearly at the level supported by
browsers), most people (well, their devices) are online 24x7, and
terminal emulators are still a thing (I write this in vim called from
mutt in an xterm). Oh, and any bandwidth wasted by HTML or images is
negligible compared to cat videos. OTOH, they might read the mail on a
device with a very small screen and an atrocious "keyboard". Or use a
MUA which can't quote correctly.

So my expectations on what a recipient can or cannot read or how they
can format their mails are somewhat different than they were in 1990 or
2000 or 2010. They will again be different in 2030.


> > if an image is useful for the topic at hand (say designing a
> > system and having a diagram showing that design) then that image should be
> > allowed.
> 
> If someone needs really an image to show a problem, it can be put on
> some server and the link could be posted, like this one showing a PANIC
> of a system http://www.unixarea.de/fbsd-panic-20210110.jpg

That has the disadvantage of not being archived.

hp

-- 
   _  | Peter J. Holzer| Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) ||
| |   | h...@hjp.at |-- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |   challenge!"


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Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Laurenz Albe]

On Sat, 2021-01-16 at 18:22 +1100, Tim Cross wrote:
> Hemil Ruparel  writes:
> > Exactly my point. We need to raise the bar of the behavior we tolerate.
> > This should not be tolerated. We need to set an example. The person in
> > question clearly understood english and I have never seen a person who
> > could use mailing lists but not google. So that's out of the question.
> > We are not free consultants. And you are not entitled to shit. You are
> > probably being paid to work on that project. We are not. Your problem. Fix
> > it yourself. Or at least have to courtesy to google it.
> 
> While I can understand your frustration, I disagree with your position.
> 
> It is too subjective and difficult to apply/adopt such a strong position
> and could too easily backfire, resulting in a perception of an elitist,
> unwelcoming and unfriendly community.
> 
> Banning should be reserved for the most serious and abusive cases.

+1

I personally find Hemil's attitude and his persistent refusal to
bottom-post more disruptive than the original question.

pgsql-general should remain a low-threshold forum where nothing about
PostgreSQL is off-topic.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe
-- 
Cybertec | https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Peter J. Holzer]

On 2021-01-17 11:11:01 -0800, Adrian Klaver wrote:
> On 1/17/21 11:04 AM, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> > > Always reply-to-all.
> > 
> > Why? Why I (and other subscribers) have to have the same mail twice in
> > the mbox?
> 
> You can prevent that by going here:
> 
> https://lists.postgresql.org/manage/
> 
> and checking:
> 
> Don't receive an extra copy of mails when listed in To or CC fields

For me that works in the wrong direction. I absolutely want to get the
mails through the mailing-list, so that they are correctly filtered. I
would prefer to not get an extra copy directly. (but I can live with
that).

Of course the mailing list server can't filter mails it never sees.

Mutt adds a header to indicate the preferences of the sender, but I
think that is only recognized by mutt, so it's not a general solution.

hp

-- 
   _  | Peter J. Holzer| Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) ||
| |   | h...@hjp.at |-- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |   challenge!"


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Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Peter J. Holzer]

On 2021-01-17 11:23:37 +0100, Thiemo Kellner wrote:
> > Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of
> > varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when people
> > post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need formatting
> > preserved such as select output, i.e. table data, explain plans, etc.
> > Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one of the worst...
> 
> Well, one could say that with html messages one can "force" a monospaced
> font like consolas or courier. Then again, there is no guarantee that the
> receiving end does have it installed.

"font-family: monospace" should always work. A MUA sending HTML mail can
(and should) therefore specify e.g. "font-family: Consolas, monospace",
not just "font-family: Consolas" to provide for a fallback.

(Do Webfonts work in Email? Do we even *want* them to work?)


> And on top, everyone is free to have her/his mail client to display
> plain text in monospaced font and is only to blame her/himself if not
> doing so.

Yeah. Unfortunately many people don't know how to configure that (or use
a MUA where it can't be configured). So unfortunatly we can't assume
that plain text == monospaced. As someone who likes to underscore stuff
in quotes and draw ASCII (or Unicode) diagrams, I find that annoying,
but I can't change it.


> > I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and
> > dropping all non plain text attachments would help a lot already.
> 
> I would not do that. It is the work on the wrong end with doubtful result.
> Wouldn't it be better to reject non-plain-text postings?

ACK.


> While at it, is there a rule of thumb for the length of inline code - in
> comparison to attaching code files in comparison to using something like
> pastebin.com? I only found very coarse instructions on what to do on the
> lists. Have I been missing a link to a netiquette page?

I don't think there is. My rule od thumb is that it should be short
enough to read as part of the message. Of course this is very subjective
and may even depend on my mood (Sometimes I find a 20 line SQL query too
long, sometimes I'm happy to dig through 200 lines of Perl code ...). It
also depends very much on coding style: If code is badly formatted or
organized, I'll give up much sooner.

hp

-- 
   _  | Peter J. Holzer| Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) ||
| |   | h...@hjp.at |-- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |   challenge!"


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Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Peter J. Holzer]

On 2021-01-16 14:01:44 -0700, Rob Sargent wrote:
> Mail has always been well threaded, retaining which message lead to which
> replies.  How did we get away from relying on that (naked posting)?

Has that ever been a thing? Quoting (and trimming) the message you are
replying to has been normal since at least the late 1980's (when I
started to use E-Mail). Unix-based mailers (at least since elm, not sure
about mailx) automatically quoted the previous mail with the ">" prefix.
Eudora (on Windows) did that also, if I remember correctly. Few people
deleted everything. Probably because most MUAs displayed only one
message at a time. The first MUA I've seen that displayed an entire
thread at once was Gmail.

hp

-- 
   _  | Peter J. Holzer| Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) ||
| |   | h...@hjp.at |-- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |   challenge!"


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Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Matthias Apitz]

El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 12:23:23p. m. -0700, David G. Johnston 
escribió:

> Its 2021;

Yes, and for what this argument is good for? Is 2021 better than 2020 or
even worth?

> if an image is useful for the topic at hand (say designing a
> system and having a diagram showing that design) then that image should be
> allowed.

If someone needs really an image to show a problem, it can be put on
some server and the link could be posted, like this one showing a PANIC
of a system http://www.unixarea.de/fbsd-panic-20210110.jpg

> It's useful to be able to see who is involved in the discussion by looking
> at the recipients and being able to know which of the hundreds of -general
> threads that hit my inbox I actually replied to in the past and thus can
> filter them to bring to my attention while leaving alone ones I'm not
> involved in.

I take the decision of purging or not a mail based on its subject, and
after open a mail based of things like top postings (these get purged
without further reading). I know the mail subjects I was involved or on which
I answered or which I initiated.

matthias
-- 
Matthias Apitz, ✉ g...@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
¡Con Cuba no te metas!  «»  Don't mess with Cuba!  «»  Leg Dich nicht mit Kuba 
an!
http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2020/12/25/en-video-con-cuba-no-te-metas/

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[David G. Johnston]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 12:05 PM Matthias Apitz  wrote:

> Mails to a mailing list should be text (or even ASCII) because not all
> subscribers can read HTML or images and they're not needed to describe a
> problem.
>

Its 2021; if an image is useful for the topic at hand (say designing a
system and having a diagram showing that design) then that image should be
allowed.

> Images have the risk to have malicious content with the intention to use
> bugs
> in the image viewers. HTML can "phone home" with one pixel href's to
> check if you opened the HTML page.
>

Fair points though I'd be inclined to argue whether such fears are
sufficient.  As doing nothing is the status quo and we haven't had
incidents of this nature it seems like it not a problem in practice for
whatever reason.

>
> > As we seem to be compiling a list for people to review upfront (the major
> > points in this thread should make it to the website and be linked to by
> > community responders when encountering said problematic posts).
> >
> > Always reply-to-all.
>
> Why? Why I (and other subscribers) have to have the same mail twice in
> the mbox?
>
>
It's useful to be able to see who is involved in the discussion by looking
at the recipients and being able to know which of the hundreds of -general
threads that hit my inbox I actually replied to in the past and thus can
filter them to bring to my attention while leaving alone ones I'm not
involved in.

In reverse setting up a rule to ignore emails sent both to the group and
myself is possible if I wish to treat any that hit the group the same and
know that the ones also addressed personally are duplicates to those others.

So reply-all gives people options while reply-to-list only doesn't.
Options are good.

David J.

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Matthias Apitz]

El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 11:11:01a. m. -0800, Adrian Klaver 
escribió:

> You can prevent that by going here:
> 
> https://lists.postgresql.org/manage/
> 
> and checking:
> 
> Don't receive an extra copy of mails when listed in To or CC fields

Thanks. I wasn't aware of it and switched it of now.

matthias
-- 
Matthias Apitz, ✉ g...@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
¡Con Cuba no te metas!  «»  Don't mess with Cuba!  «»  Leg Dich nicht mit Kuba 
an!
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Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Adrian Klaver]

On 1/17/21 11:04 AM, Matthias Apitz wrote:


Hello,

I disagree in some of the points:

El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 10:10:28a. m. -0700, David G. Johnston 
escribió:


Neither images nor non-plain-text means that the content is unreadable, not
useful, or problematic.  Dealing with these on an email-by-email basis
through the community seems fine.


Mails to a mailing list should be text (or even ASCII) because not all
subscribers can read HTML or images and they're not needed to describe a
problem.

Images have the risk to have malicious content with the intention to use bugs
in the image viewers. HTML can "phone home" with one pixel href's to
check if you opened the HTML page.


As we seem to be compiling a list for people to review upfront (the major
points in this thread should make it to the website and be linked to by
community responders when encountering said problematic posts).

Always reply-to-all.


Why? Why I (and other subscribers) have to have the same mail twice in
the mbox?


You can prevent that by going here:

https://lists.postgresql.org/manage/

and checking:

Don't receive an extra copy of mails when listed in To or CC fields

Reply All is used so the folks involved in the conversation get the 
emails in a timely manner even if the mail server is running slow 
delivering to everyone else.





...


matthias




--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@aklaver.com

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Matthias Apitz]

Hello,

I disagree in some of the points:

El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 10:10:28a. m. -0700, David G. Johnston 
escribió:

> Neither images nor non-plain-text means that the content is unreadable, not
> useful, or problematic.  Dealing with these on an email-by-email basis
> through the community seems fine.

Mails to a mailing list should be text (or even ASCII) because not all
subscribers can read HTML or images and they're not needed to describe a
problem.

Images have the risk to have malicious content with the intention to use bugs
in the image viewers. HTML can "phone home" with one pixel href's to
check if you opened the HTML page.

> As we seem to be compiling a list for people to review upfront (the major
> points in this thread should make it to the website and be linked to by
> community responders when encountering said problematic posts).
> 
> Always reply-to-all.

Why? Why I (and other subscribers) have to have the same mail twice in
the mbox?

> ...

matthias
-- 
Matthias Apitz, ✉ g...@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
¡Con Cuba no te metas!  «»  Don't mess with Cuba!  «»  Leg Dich nicht mit Kuba 
an!
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Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Rob Sargent]

> 
Yes it’s unfortunately highly probable that someone asking (yet again) how to 
tune postgres will not first search for how to formulate a question.  Not to 
say such info as you, David, and others propose should not be made available as 
it certainly should but that we may have to accept such nuisance posts as part 
of the cost of the truly valuable. Hopefully we agree that they are not, at 
least to date, unbearably frequent. 

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[David G. Johnston]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 3:30 AM Paul Förster 
wrote:

> > On 17. Jan, 2021, at 11:23, Thiemo Kellner 
> wrote:
> >
> > I would not do that. It is the work on the wrong end with doubtful
> result. Wouldn't it be better to reject non-plain-text postings?
>
> coming to think of it:
> +1
>
>
Neither images nor non-plain-text means that the content is unreadable, not
useful, or problematic.  Dealing with these on an email-by-email basis
through the community seems fine.

As we seem to be compiling a list for people to review upfront (the major
points in this thread should make it to the website and be linked to by
community responders when encountering said problematic posts).

Always reply-to-all.
Don't cross-post within the lists (we have added technology to aid with
this)
Don't send us questions when your pgAdmin4 application isn't working right;
the pgsql-admin list may contain both "pg" and "admin" in the title but
that is not its purpose.

David J.

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Paul Förster]

Hi Thiemo,

> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 11:23, Thiemo Kellner  
> wrote:
> 
> I would not do that. It is the work on the wrong end with doubtful result. 
> Wouldn't it be better to reject non-plain-text postings?

coming to think of it:
+1

> While at it, is there a rule of thumb for the length of inline code - in 
> comparison to attaching code files in comparison to using something like 
> pastebin.com? I only found very coarse instructions on what to do on the 
> lists. Have I been missing a link to a netiquette page?

no, there's no formal statement that I know of. But as you can see, I for 
example only quote the sentences or paragraphs I refer to, which is what the 
old Netiquette said and which I find makes perfect sense. I also rarely quote 
more than one quote level, and only when absolutely necessary.

Cheers,
Paul

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Thiemo Kellner]

Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot  
of varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when  
people post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need  
formatting preserved such as select output, i.e. table data, explain  
plans, etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one  
of the worst...


Well, one could say that with html messages one can "force" a  
monospaced font like consolas or courier. Then again, there is no  
guarantee that the receiving end does have it installed. And on top,  
everyone is free to have her/his mail client to display plain text in  
monospaced font and is only to blame her/himself if not doing so.



And then there's people posting screen shots instead of copy/paste... :-(


+1

I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and  
dropping all non plain text attachments would help a lot already.


I would not do that. It is the work on the wrong end with doubtful  
result. Wouldn't it be better to reject non-plain-text postings?


While at it, is there a rule of thumb for the length of inline code -  
in comparison to attaching code files in comparison to using something  
like pastebin.com? I only found very coarse instructions on what to do  
on the lists. Have I been missing a link to a netiquette page?


Cheers Thiemo


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Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Paul Förster]

Hi Tim,

> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 10:04, Tim Cross  wrote:
> 
> There is nothing stopping you from using a text mail program, like mutt,
> on macOS.

right. And what I said was not meant to be a complaint. Otherwise I would have 
complained long ago. It was just a wish. :-)

Cheers,
Paul

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Paul Förster]

Hi Tim,

> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 09:43, Tim Cross  wrote:
> 
> Highly recommend a mutt and imap combination. Your not locked into any
> particular mail folder format, can still access things via mobile
> devices and can process messages fast and efficiently.

also, there's the good old elm. ;-)

> He was amazed when I showed him all he needed to do was highlight the
> error message, copy it and paste it into the message. This guy was one
> of the senior developers on the team.
> 
> I switched employers a few weeks later.

one just can't know it all, I can understand that. But I expect a senior 
developer to develop good software. Knowing at least basic functionality of the 
tools s/he uses is one aspect of it. Copy/paste text is a basic thing which I 
expect a developer to know how to use, be it a terminal window or the IDE in 
use.

The buzz-title "senior" developer/dba/whatever is very relative to what the 
company sees in you. I found that what is called "junior" in one company is 
"senior" or even "seasoned" in the next. These are only buzz words without a 
proper norm and classification and I don't give them much credit.

With about 21 years of experience, my company calls me "Senior Oracle DBA". 
Still, I don't know RAC because we never had it, and know only little of Data 
Guard, which is way too complicated and bloated anyway. Oracle is so bug-ridden 
that I spend all of my day searching for fixes for databases and the OEM. Thank 
god, my day shifts more and more to PostgreSQL. :-)

Cheers,
Paul

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Tim Cross]

Paul Förster  writes:

> Hi raf,
>
>> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 02:59, raf  wrote:
>>
>> I once wrote a program to do that very thing:
>>
>>  http://raf.org/textmail/
>>  https://github.com/raforg/textmail/
>
> thanks very much for the nice offer but I mostly read my Mails on a Mac, 
> sometimes Windows, but never Linux. I have no mail access on Linux. At home I 
> use Macs and at work I (have to :-() use Windows as desktops. So textmail is 
> not an option for me.
>

There is nothing stopping you from using a text mail program, like mutt,
on macOS.

--
Tim Cross

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Tim Cross]

Paul Förster  writes:

> Hi Adrian,
>
> I'm on a Mac w/ Big Sur (macOS 11.1) and use Apple Mail. I've been on Macs 
> since 2003. Apple Mail is simple to use and I love it for exactly that. But 
> Apple Mail has everything I expect a mail client to have, it does not allow a 
> couple of things which other mail clients might have. Some people hate it for 
> exactly that. I set Mail to always compose in plain text but there is no way 
> of manipulating incoming mails other than that automatic displaying remote 
> content (HTML links, etc.) can (and should) be turned off.
>
> So I sometimes resort to either hit cmd-opt-u to see the mail text raw 
> source, or better yet, just hit reply and then drop the reply after reading. 
> As I set composing to plain text, it will convert any quoted parts. 
> Sometimes, I just copy/paste the whole mail for reading over to TextMate, 
> which is also sub-optimal but obviously also gives me non-proportional font 
> reading.
>
> Still, this is somewhat cumbersome as I have to do that for each mail 
> individually. Thank god, this doesn't happen too often. Yet, it's still 
> annoying enough.
>

I've used a number of GUI mail clients, including Apple Mail. However, I
find still the fastest, most feature rich and powerful client is the
text based client mutt. My other favourite is mu4e (Emacs client). While
Apple Mail has reasonable keyboard shortcuts, mutt and mu4e can be fully
keyboard driven and both have great (but different) abilities for
customisation and dealing with large amounts of mail. The thing I hate
most (and there is a lot to hate) with Outlook is the dependence on
using the mouse for many operations. Being able to preview, sort, move,
delete, messages and threads just using the keyboard makes dealing with
mail much easier to deal with. Having a client which can do
sophisticated sorting, flagging and searching messages/threads is essential and
being able to easily automate where possible really helps.

Highly recommend a mutt and imap combination. Your not locked into any
particular mail folder format, can still access things via mobile
devices and can process messages fast and efficiently.

>> That is a learning curve thing. Many people don't know that copy and paste 
>> exists for terminals/GUI's/etc. Most people, once they are pointed in the 
>> right direction, will change that habit. That is why I would not advocate 
>> dropping non plain text attachments. Take this as a teaching moment and 
>> explain the reason why text is a benefit.
>
> I guess, they only change their behavior because copying/pasting some text is 
> easier to do than creating a windowshot with aligning the frame manually, 
> etc. But whatever the reason, thank god, some people are willing to learn 
> that if being told.
>

It is easy to forget the different experience levels and sophistication
of users. I once had to help resolve a problem a developer was having
with a database. I asked him to send me the exact error message. He
moaned and said that was a real hassle. I couldn't understand why he
found that so difficult to do. I decided to get him to show me his
workflow.

When the error occurred, he would take a screen shot of his window, send
it to the printer, wait for the printer to send back a PDF and then send
the issue with the PDF attached.

He was amazed when I showed him all he needed to do was highlight the
error message, copy it and paste it into the message. This guy was one
of the senior developers on the team.

I switched employers a few weeks later.

--
Tim Cross

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Paul Förster]

Hi raf,

> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 02:59, raf  wrote:
> 
> I once wrote a program to do that very thing:
> 
>  http://raf.org/textmail/
>  https://github.com/raforg/textmail/

thanks very much for the nice offer but I mostly read my Mails on a Mac, 
sometimes Windows, but never Linux. I have no mail access on Linux. At home I 
use Macs and at work I (have to :-() use Windows as desktops. So textmail is 
not an option for me.

Cheers,
Paul

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Paul Förster]

Hi Adrian,

> On 16. Jan, 2021, at 23:46, Adrian Klaver  wrote:
> 
> That is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

yes, but sometimes, just sometimes, things in the olden days were just better. 
:-)

> Too many GUI email interfaces these days that use 'advanced` formatting. I 
> use Thunderbird and it allows me to convert incoming to plain text on the 
> fly. Not a perfect system, but it cuts down on a lot of the garish content.

I'm on a Mac w/ Big Sur (macOS 11.1) and use Apple Mail. I've been on Macs 
since 2003. Apple Mail is simple to use and I love it for exactly that. But 
Apple Mail has everything I expect a mail client to have, it does not allow a 
couple of things which other mail clients might have. Some people hate it for 
exactly that. I set Mail to always compose in plain text but there is no way of 
manipulating incoming mails other than that automatic displaying remote content 
(HTML links, etc.) can (and should) be turned off.

Asking our ex don't-be-evil friend revealed a setting for Apple Mail:
defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE
But that doesn't work (anymore?), at least not with Big Sur.

So I sometimes resort to either hit cmd-opt-u to see the mail text raw source, 
or better yet, just hit reply and then drop the reply after reading. As I set 
composing to plain text, it will convert any quoted parts. Sometimes, I just 
copy/paste the whole mail for reading over to TextMate, which is also 
sub-optimal but obviously also gives me non-proportional font reading.

Still, this is somewhat cumbersome as I have to do that for each mail 
individually. Thank god, this doesn't happen too often. Yet, it's still 
annoying enough.

> That is a learning curve thing. Many people don't know that copy and paste 
> exists for terminals/GUI's/etc. Most people, once they are pointed in the 
> right direction, will change that habit. That is why I would not advocate 
> dropping non plain text attachments. Take this as a teaching moment and 
> explain the reason why text is a benefit.

I guess, they only change their behavior because copying/pasting some text is 
easier to do than creating a windowshot with aligning the frame manually, etc. 
But whatever the reason, thank god, some people are willing to learn that if 
being told.

Cheers,
Paul

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[raf]

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 11:28:37PM +0100, Paul Förster 
 wrote:

> Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of
> varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when people
> post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need formatting
> preserved such as select output, i.e. table data, explain plans,
> etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one of the
> worst...
> 
> [...]
> 
> I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and
> dropping all non plain text attachments would help a lot already.
> 
> Cheers,
> Paul

I once wrote a program to do that very thing:

  http://raf.org/textmail/
  https://github.com/raforg/textmail/

It converts everything it can into plain text (using
lots of helper applications which also need to be
installed), and it deletes everything else, all highly
configurable, of course. It might be possible to
incorporate it into a mailing list, but perhaps that's
a bit draconian. You could probably incorporate it into
your own email flow as emails arrive before you see
them. I've used procmail for that, but imapfilter
(https://github.com/lefcha/imapfilter) might be more
appropriate if your email is in an imap account.

cheers,
raf

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Adrian Klaver]

On 1/16/21 2:28 PM, Paul Förster wrote:

Hi Bruce,


On 16. Jan, 2021, at 19:36, Bruce Momjian  wrote:

That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
others have to view.


+1.

Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of varying 
fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when people post messages not 
properly trimmed or messages that need formatting preserved such as select 
output, i.e. table data, explain plans, etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with 
its darn Arial) is one of the worst...


That is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Too many GUI 
email interfaces these days that use 'advanced` formatting. I use 
Thunderbird and it allows me to convert incoming to plain text on the 
fly. Not a perfect system, but it cuts down on a lot of the garish content.




And then there's people posting screen shots instead of copy/paste... :-(


That is a learning curve thing. Many people don't know that copy and 
paste exists for terminals/GUI's/etc. Most people, once they are pointed 
in the right direction, will change that habit. That is why I would not 
advocate dropping non plain text attachments. Take this as a teaching 
moment and explain the reason why text is a benefit.




What a world. Actually, the old Netiquette from the 1990's had it right. But 
then, who knows about that anymore.

I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and dropping 
all non plain text attachments would help a lot already.

Cheers,
Paul




--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@aklaver.com

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Paul Förster]

Hi Bruce,

> On 16. Jan, 2021, at 19:36, Bruce Momjian  wrote:
> 
> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
> here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
> others have to view.

+1.

Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of varying 
fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when people post messages not 
properly trimmed or messages that need formatting preserved such as select 
output, i.e. table data, explain plans, etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with 
its darn Arial) is one of the worst...

And then there's people posting screen shots instead of copy/paste... :-(

What a world. Actually, the old Netiquette from the 1990's had it right. But 
then, who knows about that anymore.

I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and dropping 
all non plain text attachments would help a lot already.

Cheers,
Paul

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Ron]

On 1/16/21 3:01 PM, Rob Sargent wrote:

Top/Bottom points um, er elided.

Mail has always been well threaded, retaining which message lead to which 
replies.  How did we get away from relying on that (naked posting)?


Outlook.

--
Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Rob Sargent]

Top/Bottom points um, er elided.

Mail has always been well threaded, retaining which message lead to 
which replies.  How did we get away from relying on that (naked posting)?

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Tim Cross]

Michael Nolan  writes:

> There's so much garbage in a Google search any more that they're becoming
> nearly useless.  Between 'sponsored' hits and ones that have little or no
> relevance but throw in words to get included, I find as often as not that
> IF Google finds what I'm looking for, it'll be several pages in.
>

There is certainly a bit of 'art' or 'black magic' involved when doing a
google to find relevant information and the amount of noise in the
signal has certainly gotten worse. I find putting the key terms early in
your search string can help. However, when dealing with an unfamiliar
topic, knowing what those key terms are can be challenging. This is one
reason I rarely tell people to 'just google for the answer' or assume
they haven't tried when the answer seems quite obvious and easily found
for me.

The change I've noticed over the last decade or so is the amount of
completely wrong or misleading information that is easily found. I
rarely use stack overflow sites these days because too often, the
accepted or most popular answer is wrong or gets a result, but in a poor
manner that is likely to introduce other issues.

The one thing I wish people did was provide clear and concise meta data
with the information they post. Often, I find it difficult to know, for
example, how old the information is or which version of the software it
applies to.

When it comes to PG, I think we are very lucky. In general, I find the
official documentation to be of the highest quality. Sometimes, I can be
a little dense and a few more examples would be useful, but I understand
how hard getting the balance between enough examples and concise
information can be.

It is often in this forum where I find some of the most useful
information and ideas. I really appreciate those contributors who not
only provide an answer to a question, but also include URLs to other
sources which frequently contain more background or details. Pointers to
such valuable resources from those more knowledgeable can save hours of
googling and wading through ill informed and misguided advice.


--
Tim Cross

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Bruce Momjian]

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 03:34:32PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Alvaro Herrera  writes:
> > On 2021-Jan-16, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
> >> here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
> >> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
> >> others have to view.
> 
> > Yes.  Gmail, by hiding the quoted part of the message, has taught people
> > that it's okay to leave the whole thing in place.  For most of the rest
> > of the world, it's an annoyance.
> 
> Top-posting goes along with that.  The gmail style of top-posting and
> not trimming what's quoted is sort of okay, as long as you don't actually
> need to read any of what's quoted (but then why bother quoting it...)
> 
> The combination of bottom-posting and not trimming what you quoted is
> actually the worst of all possible worlds, because then people are
> forced to scroll through a whole lot of stuff to see what you added.

Agreed.  By telling people not to top-post, we have made it worse in
many cases.

> I see way too many people doing that lately, and to be honest I usually
> stop reading their messages once I see that that's what they did.
> You should only quote enough to remind the reader of what you're
> responding to.

That is also what I do.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  https://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB https://enterprisedb.com

  The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Tom Lane]

Alvaro Herrera  writes:
> On 2021-Jan-16, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
>> here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
>> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
>> others have to view.

> Yes.  Gmail, by hiding the quoted part of the message, has taught people
> that it's okay to leave the whole thing in place.  For most of the rest
> of the world, it's an annoyance.

Top-posting goes along with that.  The gmail style of top-posting and
not trimming what's quoted is sort of okay, as long as you don't actually
need to read any of what's quoted (but then why bother quoting it...)

The combination of bottom-posting and not trimming what you quoted is
actually the worst of all possible worlds, because then people are
forced to scroll through a whole lot of stuff to see what you added.

I see way too many people doing that lately, and to be honest I usually
stop reading their messages once I see that that's what they did.
You should only quote enough to remind the reader of what you're
responding to.

regards, tom lane

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Rob Sargent]

> On Jan 16, 2021, at 12:26 PM, Rich Shepard  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> 
>> Bruce,
> 
> This has become most common over the past few years. It may be the result of
> people using their pocket computers (sold as 'mobile phones') for email and
> they don't take the time to delete extraneous lines or scroll to the bottom
> to type their reply.
> 
> Rich
> 
> 
Typically we hear “bottom post” when we should hear “trim appropriately and 
bottom post”

It’s not just people on phones. Work place mail boxes are stuffed with multiple 
copies a same spread sheet as mailers now “inline” those.

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Bruce Momjian wrote:


That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
here. I have been meaning to mention this problem. Thousands of people are
reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what others
have to view.


Bruce,

This has become most common over the past few years. It may be the result of
people using their pocket computers (sold as 'mobile phones') for email and
they don't take the time to delete extraneous lines or scroll to the bottom
to type their reply.

Rich

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Alvaro Herrera]

On 2021-Jan-16, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 02:50:58PM -0300, Álvaro Herrera wrote:
> > On 2021-Jan-16, Hemil Ruparel wrote:
> > 
> > > Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted
> > 
> > One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not
> > to do it, and teaching others the same.  Same with not quoting entire
> > messages on reply.
> 
> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
> here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
> others have to view.

Yes.  Gmail, by hiding the quoted part of the message, has taught people
that it's okay to leave the whole thing in place.  For most of the rest
of the world, it's an annoyance.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera39°49'30"S 73°17'W
"After a quick R of TFM, all I can say is HOLY CR** THAT IS COOL! PostgreSQL was
amazing when I first started using it at 7.2, and I'm continually astounded by
learning new features and techniques made available by the continuing work of
the development team."
Berend Tober, http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2007-08/msg01009.php

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Matthias Apitz]

El día sábado, enero 16, 2021 a las 02:50:58p. m. -0300, Alvaro Herrera 
escribió:

> One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not
> to do it, and teaching others the same.  Same with not quoting entire
> messages on reply.

+1

matthias
-- 
Matthias Apitz, ✉ g...@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
¡Con Cuba no te metas!  «»  Don't mess with Cuba!  «»  Leg Dich nicht mit Kuba 
an!
http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2020/12/25/en-video-con-cuba-no-te-metas/

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Bruce Momjian]

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 02:50:58PM -0300, Álvaro Herrera wrote:
> On 2021-Jan-16, Hemil Ruparel wrote:
> 
> > Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted
> 
> One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not
> to do it, and teaching others the same.  Same with not quoting entire
> messages on reply.

That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
others have to view.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  https://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB https://enterprisedb.com

  The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Rob Sargent]

> On Jan 16, 2021, at 11:00 AM, Rich Shepard  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Paul Förster wrote:
> 
>> Or use duckduckgo or some other search engine.
> 
> +1
> 
> Rich
> 
And I apologize for a couple of toppers in this thread. Recent changes to 
mailer 
> 

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Paul Förster wrote:


Or use duckduckgo or some other search engine.


+1

Rich

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Alvaro Herrera]

On 2021-Jan-16, Hemil Ruparel wrote:

> Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted

One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not
to do it, and teaching others the same.  Same with not quoting entire
messages on reply.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera   Valdivia, Chile

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Paul Förster]

Hi Mike,

> On 16. Jan, 2021, at 18:29, Michael Nolan  wrote:
> 
> There's so much garbage in a Google search any more that they're becoming 
> nearly useless.  Between 'sponsored' hits and ones that have little or no 
> relevance but throw in words to get included, I find as often as not that IF 
> Google finds what I'm looking for, it'll be several pages in.  
> 
> At some point there may be a Next Great Search Engine, at least I hope so.

I always put "postgres" or "postgresql" in front of my searches. That almost 
always yields results one of which contains useful information.

Or use duckduckgo or some other search engine.

Cheers,
Paul

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Michael Nolan]

There's so much garbage in a Google search any more that they're becoming
nearly useless.  Between 'sponsored' hits and ones that have little or no
relevance but throw in words to get included, I find as often as not that
IF Google finds what I'm looking for, it'll be several pages in.

At some point there may be a Next Great Search Engine, at least I hope so.
--
Mike Nolan

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Hemil Ruparel]

In my frustration*

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 1:24 PM Hemil Ruparel 
wrote:

> In my furstration, I never thought about the self moderation effect.
> Thanks Tim
>
> On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 1:14 PM Tim Cross  wrote:
>
>>
>> Hemil Ruparel  writes:
>>
>> > Exactly my point. We need to raise the bar of the behavior we tolerate.
>> > This should not be tolerated. We need to set an example. The person in
>> > question clearly understood english and I have never seen a person who
>> > could use mailing lists but not google. So that's out of the question.
>> >
>> > We are not free consultants. And you are not entitled to shit. You are
>> > probably being paid to work on that project. We are not. Your problem.
>> Fix
>> > it yourself. Or at least have to courtesy to google it.
>> >
>>
>> While I can understand your frustration, I disagree with your position.
>>
>> It is too subjective and difficult to apply/adopt such a strong position
>> and could too easily backfire, resulting in a perception of an elitist,
>> unwelcoming and unfriendly community.
>>
>> Banning should be reserved for the most serious and abusive cases.
>> Banning because someone appears to be acting entitled or lazy is hard to
>> assess in a non-bias manner and likely has too much cultural variation
>> to applied consistently. Someone you feel who is being entitled or lazy
>> might be someone I feel is frustrated, may lack good communication
>> and/or social skills or might simply be immature and in need of some
>> guidance and education. My response may also differ depending on my own
>> state of mind and mood at the time when I read the message.
>>
>> I've been on the postgres lists for some years now and to be honest,
>> have not noticed this type of issue very often. There are occasionally
>> rude and lazy individuals who may appear to be acting entitled, but they
>> soon go away. In some respects, the list is self-moderating because
>> people who do act poorly soon get ignored and their messages die out
>> with no responses.
>>
>> The great benefit of lists like these is that you can just ignore anyone
>> you think are rude, entitled or fail to put in the effort you believe is
>> warranted before their question/issue needs attention. Many mail clients
>> will even allow you to 'block' specific senders. I have done this once
>> with someone from a different list. I don't know if they are still
>> behaving badly as now I never see their messages.
>>
>> My advice would be to just delete and move on, a luxury you don't have
>> when you are employed and paid to deal with such messages, which is one
>> reason I don't like or have the temperament to fulfil the difficult
>> service/support desk roles which too often maligned and fail to get the
>> recognition they deserve.
>>
>> Tim
>>
>>
>>

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Hemil Ruparel]

In my furstration, I never thought about the self moderation effect. Thanks
Tim

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 1:14 PM Tim Cross  wrote:

>
> Hemil Ruparel  writes:
>
> > Exactly my point. We need to raise the bar of the behavior we tolerate.
> > This should not be tolerated. We need to set an example. The person in
> > question clearly understood english and I have never seen a person who
> > could use mailing lists but not google. So that's out of the question.
> >
> > We are not free consultants. And you are not entitled to shit. You are
> > probably being paid to work on that project. We are not. Your problem.
> Fix
> > it yourself. Or at least have to courtesy to google it.
> >
>
> While I can understand your frustration, I disagree with your position.
>
> It is too subjective and difficult to apply/adopt such a strong position
> and could too easily backfire, resulting in a perception of an elitist,
> unwelcoming and unfriendly community.
>
> Banning should be reserved for the most serious and abusive cases.
> Banning because someone appears to be acting entitled or lazy is hard to
> assess in a non-bias manner and likely has too much cultural variation
> to applied consistently. Someone you feel who is being entitled or lazy
> might be someone I feel is frustrated, may lack good communication
> and/or social skills or might simply be immature and in need of some
> guidance and education. My response may also differ depending on my own
> state of mind and mood at the time when I read the message.
>
> I've been on the postgres lists for some years now and to be honest,
> have not noticed this type of issue very often. There are occasionally
> rude and lazy individuals who may appear to be acting entitled, but they
> soon go away. In some respects, the list is self-moderating because
> people who do act poorly soon get ignored and their messages die out
> with no responses.
>
> The great benefit of lists like these is that you can just ignore anyone
> you think are rude, entitled or fail to put in the effort you believe is
> warranted before their question/issue needs attention. Many mail clients
> will even allow you to 'block' specific senders. I have done this once
> with someone from a different list. I don't know if they are still
> behaving badly as now I never see their messages.
>
> My advice would be to just delete and move on, a luxury you don't have
> when you are employed and paid to deal with such messages, which is one
> reason I don't like or have the temperament to fulfil the difficult
> service/support desk roles which too often maligned and fail to get the
> recognition they deserve.
>
> Tim
>
>
>

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Hemil Ruparel]

Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 1:11 PM David G. Johnston <
david.g.johns...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Friday, January 15, 2021, Hemil Ruparel 
> wrote:
>
>> I am not asking people to get banned the moment they ask easy questions.
>> I am 18. Believe me I have done that too (way more than i would like to
>> admit ;P). I am just saying we should guide them. But there are some people
>> who do not wish to be guided. They just want spoonfed answers which is
>> untolerable in my opinion. You need to be ready to learn on your own. And
>> attempt to struggle with your problem for at least a few hours before
>> asking for help
>>
>
> Please consider taking the not top-posting request to heart.
>
> This is part of what I was referring to - while you feel strongly about
> this position the moderators are not going to ban people for this behavior,
> nor should they.  The community can impose a punishment by simply not
> responding, or can avoid conflict by giving answers, while some cases
> result in attempts to educate (which I do on occasion...and which frankly,
> and correctly, puts me out there for needing rebuke/support as a community
> representative moreso than the questioner).
>
> There is a lot of grey here and untolerable doesn’t fit well and you will
> need to make a personal decision if you find yourself keeping score and
> simply reading that kind of email causes discomfort.  On that point, I will
> say that my innate emotional response is quite similar and that I get
> concerned that I act in counter-productive and unhealthy ways at times.
> But its not the responsibility of the project to prevent exposing me to
> situations where my highly judgmental nature is riled, and it should tell
> me if I fail to control my response to that emotion.  At the same time,
> acknowledging that people such as myself do generally positively represent
> the community it is does behoove them to consider providing support/tools
> that can mitigate this human aspect of the request/reply dynamic.
>
> David J.
>
>

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Tim Cross]

Hemil Ruparel  writes:

> Exactly my point. We need to raise the bar of the behavior we tolerate.
> This should not be tolerated. We need to set an example. The person in
> question clearly understood english and I have never seen a person who
> could use mailing lists but not google. So that's out of the question.
>
> We are not free consultants. And you are not entitled to shit. You are
> probably being paid to work on that project. We are not. Your problem. Fix
> it yourself. Or at least have to courtesy to google it.
>

While I can understand your frustration, I disagree with your position.

It is too subjective and difficult to apply/adopt such a strong position
and could too easily backfire, resulting in a perception of an elitist,
unwelcoming and unfriendly community.

Banning should be reserved for the most serious and abusive cases.
Banning because someone appears to be acting entitled or lazy is hard to
assess in a non-bias manner and likely has too much cultural variation
to applied consistently. Someone you feel who is being entitled or lazy
might be someone I feel is frustrated, may lack good communication
and/or social skills or might simply be immature and in need of some
guidance and education. My response may also differ depending on my own
state of mind and mood at the time when I read the message.

I've been on the postgres lists for some years now and to be honest,
have not noticed this type of issue very often. There are occasionally
rude and lazy individuals who may appear to be acting entitled, but they
soon go away. In some respects, the list is self-moderating because
people who do act poorly soon get ignored and their messages die out
with no responses.

The great benefit of lists like these is that you can just ignore anyone
you think are rude, entitled or fail to put in the effort you believe is
warranted before their question/issue needs attention. Many mail clients
will even allow you to 'block' specific senders. I have done this once
with someone from a different list. I don't know if they are still
behaving badly as now I never see their messages.

My advice would be to just delete and move on, a luxury you don't have
when you are employed and paid to deal with such messages, which is one
reason I don't like or have the temperament to fulfil the difficult
service/support desk roles which too often maligned and fail to get the
recognition they deserve.

Tim

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[David G. Johnston]

On Friday, January 15, 2021, Hemil Ruparel 
wrote:

> I am not asking people to get banned the moment they ask easy questions. I
> am 18. Believe me I have done that too (way more than i would like to admit
> ;P). I am just saying we should guide them. But there are some people who
> do not wish to be guided. They just want spoonfed answers which is
> untolerable in my opinion. You need to be ready to learn on your own. And
> attempt to struggle with your problem for at least a few hours before
> asking for help
>

Please consider taking the not top-posting request to heart.

This is part of what I was referring to - while you feel strongly about
this position the moderators are not going to ban people for this behavior,
nor should they.  The community can impose a punishment by simply not
responding, or can avoid conflict by giving answers, while some cases
result in attempts to educate (which I do on occasion...and which frankly,
and correctly, puts me out there for needing rebuke/support as a community
representative moreso than the questioner).

There is a lot of grey here and untolerable doesn’t fit well and you will
need to make a personal decision if you find yourself keeping score and
simply reading that kind of email causes discomfort.  On that point, I will
say that my innate emotional response is quite similar and that I get
concerned that I act in counter-productive and unhealthy ways at times.
But its not the responsibility of the project to prevent exposing me to
situations where my highly judgmental nature is riled, and it should tell
me if I fail to control my response to that emotion.  At the same time,
acknowledging that people such as myself do generally positively represent
the community it is does behoove them to consider providing support/tools
that can mitigate this human aspect of the request/reply dynamic.

David J.

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Hemil Ruparel]

I am not asking people to get banned the moment they ask easy questions. I
am 18. Believe me I have done that too (way more than i would like to admit
;P). I am just saying we should guide them. But there are some people who
do not wish to be guided. They just want spoonfed answers which is
untolerable in my opinion. You need to be ready to learn on your own. And
attempt to struggle with your problem for at least a few hours before
asking for help

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 12:24 PM David G. Johnston <
david.g.johns...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Friday, January 15, 2021, Christophe Pettus  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> > On Jan 15, 2021, at 22:19, Hemil Ruparel 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > I have no problems if there are one or two questions which are exactly
>> the same. I give them the benefit of doubt. What I won't tolerate are
>> entitled people who think we work for them for free and that they are
>> entitled to receive and answer.
>>
>> I suppose it would be rude to point out that PostgreSQL list style is to
>> not top-post?  I have to say, if you are going to be firm with people about
>> etiquette...
>>
>> If someone gets abusive about not receiving help (and it does happen,
>> sadly), that's exactly the kind of thing the Code of Conduct was designed
>> for.  If they are seriously spamming the list, likewise.
>>
>> For a lot of people, though, they just aren't familiar with list
>> etiquette, do not have English as their first language and are not clear
>> what is being asked of them, or just don't know the resources out there.
>>
>> I would assume they are acting in good faith.  If you politely point out
>> resources to them and they get snappish, then it can become a CoC issue.
>> Otherwise, I think that being generous in what we receive and accurate in
>> what we reply, as with any protocol, is the right answer.
>>
>
> Agreed on all counts.  It should take more than innocent subjective
> inconsideration to get a ban or even a formal warning.  With respect to
> this flare up while heated and probably not flattering it has value and not
> worthy of censure.  For me the status quo fits into “good enough to keep my
> attention elsewhere”.  The areas I’d focus on, though, is site layout and
> content, but in a positive manner, not rules listings and policies; and
> also guidance and resources for “community defenders” on how constructively
> engage when this kind of “meta” discussion arises.  As I’m not volunteering
> for the work this is just idle complaining and ideation on my part.
>
> Oh, and an auto-responder instead of an FAQ...
>
> David J.
>
>

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[David G. Johnston]

On Friday, January 15, 2021, Christophe Pettus  wrote:

>
>
> > On Jan 15, 2021, at 22:19, Hemil Ruparel 
> wrote:
> >
> > I have no problems if there are one or two questions which are exactly
> the same. I give them the benefit of doubt. What I won't tolerate are
> entitled people who think we work for them for free and that they are
> entitled to receive and answer.
>
> I suppose it would be rude to point out that PostgreSQL list style is to
> not top-post?  I have to say, if you are going to be firm with people about
> etiquette...
>
> If someone gets abusive about not receiving help (and it does happen,
> sadly), that's exactly the kind of thing the Code of Conduct was designed
> for.  If they are seriously spamming the list, likewise.
>
> For a lot of people, though, they just aren't familiar with list
> etiquette, do not have English as their first language and are not clear
> what is being asked of them, or just don't know the resources out there.
>
> I would assume they are acting in good faith.  If you politely point out
> resources to them and they get snappish, then it can become a CoC issue.
> Otherwise, I think that being generous in what we receive and accurate in
> what we reply, as with any protocol, is the right answer.
>

Agreed on all counts.  It should take more than innocent subjective
inconsideration to get a ban or even a formal warning.  With respect to
this flare up while heated and probably not flattering it has value and not
worthy of censure.  For me the status quo fits into “good enough to keep my
attention elsewhere”.  The areas I’d focus on, though, is site layout and
content, but in a positive manner, not rules listings and policies; and
also guidance and resources for “community defenders” on how constructively
engage when this kind of “meta” discussion arises.  As I’m not volunteering
for the work this is just idle complaining and ideation on my part.

Oh, and an auto-responder instead of an FAQ...

David J.

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Rob Sargent]

To pick up Pettus's point: filtering out precisely and only the noise is 
hard.  Maybe in a couple more decades we'll be there.  (Sorry I won't be 
around for it.) For now ignoring it might be the best option.


On 1/15/21 11:43 PM, Hemil Ruparel wrote:
Exactly my point. We need to raise the bar of the behavior we 
tolerate. This should not be tolerated. We need to set an example. The 
person in question clearly understood english and I have never seen a 
person who could use mailing lists but not google. So that's out of 
the question.


We are not free consultants. And you are not entitled to shit. You are 
probably being paid to work on that project. We are not. Your problem. 
Fix it yourself. Or at least have to courtesy to google it.


On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 12:06 PM Rob Sargent > wrote:


I watched this sadness play out.  It had nothing to do with the
OP's original question.  Rather someone with feelings hurt from a
separate thread (table correlation) felt the need drag that
squabble over to the focal issue here (tools).  I was tempted
bring up the COC but I'm not really a believer.

We see these flare ups almost as frequently as the repetition of
the "tune pg tool" request.  They die out pretty quickly
especially when an obvious expert declines to waste any more of
the offender's (offended's) time.


On 1/15/21 10:51 PM, Hemil Ruparel wrote:

This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list
so I am posting it here. This
discussion sparked from this message

.


We should clearly mention on the postgres mailing list page
 that people are encouraged to
do their own research and that we are a community of people who
help for free. And so we expect OP to do basic initial research.
And the OP is not entitled to receive an answer as we are not
bound by any contract. We spend our personal time away from our
busy schedule to help others and we have the right to choose who
we give our time to.

Another important point is we need a mechanism to prevent
polluting our community. We need to raise the bar a little. Or we
become like quora. Where the same question is posted thousands of
times with the exact same wording. Stack Exchange has taken it to
the extreme to the point that it's become toxic for newbies. We
need to be somewhere in between. I propose when the first time
someone posts such a question, we give them the benefit of doubt
and point them to resources which they should consider before
posting. Second time, we warn them not to do this again and use
the resources they have at their disposal. The third time we
should temporarily ban them (say for a week).

It's my personal opinion. But i personally do not want to deal
with entitled people who cannot do basic google searches.

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Hemil Ruparel]

Exactly my point. We need to raise the bar of the behavior we tolerate.
This should not be tolerated. We need to set an example. The person in
question clearly understood english and I have never seen a person who
could use mailing lists but not google. So that's out of the question.

We are not free consultants. And you are not entitled to shit. You are
probably being paid to work on that project. We are not. Your problem. Fix
it yourself. Or at least have to courtesy to google it.

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 12:06 PM Rob Sargent  wrote:

> I watched this sadness play out.  It had nothing to do with the OP's
> original question.  Rather someone with feelings hurt from a separate
> thread (table correlation) felt the need drag that squabble over to the
> focal issue here (tools).  I was tempted bring up the COC but I'm not
> really a believer.
>
> We see these flare ups almost as frequently as the repetition of the "tune
> pg tool" request.  They die out pretty quickly especially when an obvious
> expert declines to waste any more of the offender's (offended's) time.
>
>
> On 1/15/21 10:51 PM, Hemil Ruparel wrote:
>
> This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list
>  so I am posting it here. This
> discussion sparked from this message
> 
> .
>
> We should clearly mention on the postgres mailing list page
>  that people are encouraged to do their
> own research and that we are a community of people who help for free. And
> so we expect OP to do basic initial research. And the OP is not entitled to
> receive an answer as we are not bound by any contract. We spend our
> personal time away from our busy schedule to help others and we have the
> right to choose who we give our time to.
>
> Another important point is we need a mechanism to prevent polluting our
> community. We need to raise the bar a little. Or we become like quora.
> Where the same question is posted thousands of times with the exact same
> wording. Stack Exchange has taken it to the extreme to the point that it's
> become toxic for newbies. We need to be somewhere in between. I propose
> when the first time someone posts such a question, we give them the benefit
> of doubt and point them to resources which they should consider before
> posting. Second time, we warn them not to do this again and use the
> resources they have at their disposal. The third time we should temporarily
> ban them (say for a week).
>
> It's my personal opinion. But i personally do not want to deal with
> entitled people who cannot do basic google searches.
>
>
>
>

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Rob Sargent]

I watched this sadness play out.  It had nothing to do with the OP's 
original question. Rather someone with feelings hurt from a separate 
thread (table correlation) felt the need drag that squabble over to the 
focal issue here (tools).  I was tempted bring up the COC but I'm not 
really a believer.


We see these flare ups almost as frequently as the repetition of the 
"tune pg tool" request.  They die out pretty quickly especially when an 
obvious expert declines to waste any more of the offender's (offended's) 
time.



On 1/15/21 10:51 PM, Hemil Ruparel wrote:
This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list 
so I am posting it here. This 
discussion sparked from this message 
. 



We should clearly mention on the postgres mailing list page 
 that people are encouraged to do 
their own research and that we are a community of people who help for 
free. And so we expect OP to do basic initial research. And the OP is 
not entitled to receive an answer as we are not bound by any contract. 
We spend our personal time away from our busy schedule to help others 
and we have the right to choose who we give our time to.


Another important point is we need a mechanism to prevent polluting 
our community. We need to raise the bar a little. Or we become like 
quora. Where the same question is posted thousands of times with the 
exact same wording. Stack Exchange has taken it to the extreme to the 
point that it's become toxic for newbies. We need to be somewhere in 
between. I propose when the first time someone posts such a question, 
we give them the benefit of doubt and point them to resources which 
they should consider before posting. Second time, we warn them not to 
do this again and use the resources they have at their disposal. The 
third time we should temporarily ban them (say for a week).


It's my personal opinion. But i personally do not want to deal with 
entitled people who cannot do basic google searches.

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Hemil Ruparel]

I agree. That's why I proposed to guide such people as the first attempt
giving them the benefit of the doubt.

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 11:52 AM Christophe Pettus  wrote:

>
>
> > On Jan 15, 2021, at 22:19, Hemil Ruparel 
> wrote:
> >
> > I have no problems if there are one or two questions which are exactly
> the same. I give them the benefit of doubt. What I won't tolerate are
> entitled people who think we work for them for free and that they are
> entitled to receive and answer.
>
> I suppose it would be rude to point out that PostgreSQL list style is to
> not top-post?  I have to say, if you are going to be firm with people about
> etiquette...
>
> If someone gets abusive about not receiving help (and it does happen,
> sadly), that's exactly the kind of thing the Code of Conduct was designed
> for.  If they are seriously spamming the list, likewise.
>
> For a lot of people, though, they just aren't familiar with list
> etiquette, do not have English as their first language and are not clear
> what is being asked of them, or just don't know the resources out there.
>
> I would assume they are acting in good faith.  If you politely point out
> resources to them and they get snappish, then it can become a CoC issue.
> Otherwise, I think that being generous in what we receive and accurate in
> what we reply, as with any protocol, is the right answer.
> --
> -- Christophe Pettus
>x...@thebuild.com
>
>

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Christophe Pettus]

> On Jan 15, 2021, at 22:19, Hemil Ruparel  wrote:
> 
> I have no problems if there are one or two questions which are exactly the 
> same. I give them the benefit of doubt. What I won't tolerate are entitled 
> people who think we work for them for free and that they are entitled to 
> receive and answer.

I suppose it would be rude to point out that PostgreSQL list style is to not 
top-post?  I have to say, if you are going to be firm with people about 
etiquette...

If someone gets abusive about not receiving help (and it does happen, sadly), 
that's exactly the kind of thing the Code of Conduct was designed for.  If they 
are seriously spamming the list, likewise.

For a lot of people, though, they just aren't familiar with list etiquette, do 
not have English as their first language and are not clear what is being asked 
of them, or just don't know the resources out there.

I would assume they are acting in good faith.  If you politely point out 
resources to them and they get snappish, then it can become a CoC issue.  
Otherwise, I think that being generous in what we receive and accurate in what 
we reply, as with any protocol, is the right answer.
--
-- Christophe Pettus
   x...@thebuild.com

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Hemil Ruparel]

I have no problems if there are one or two questions which are exactly the
same. I give them the benefit of doubt. What I won't tolerate are entitled
people who think we work for them for free and that they are entitled to
receive and answer.

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 11:45 AM Christophe Pettus  wrote:

>
>
> > On Jan 15, 2021, at 22:10, Hemil Ruparel 
> wrote:
> >
> > I fear that mailing lists become like quora.
>
> pgsql-general is almost old enough to drink. :)  The very first message I
> could find with a reliable date is from 31 May 2000.  I think after nearly
> 21 years, we don't have much to worry about in that regard.
>
> That message also includes the statements:
>
> > What you are asking for is replication, which is not easy to implement,
> and almost damn impossible to get it RIGHT.
>
> and
>
> > Now, what is WAL? When is it scheduled for implementation?
>
> ... which is pretty wild all by itself.
> --
> -- Christophe Pettus
>x...@thebuild.com
>
>

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Hemil Ruparel]

I will send them a mail anyway. Lets see their response

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 11:30 AM Hemil Ruparel 
wrote:

> I don't know on what basis should the complaint be made other than the
> peron's entitlement
>
> On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 11:24 AM Christophe Pettus 
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> > On Jan 15, 2021, at 21:51, Hemil Ruparel 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list so I am
>> posting it here. This discussion sparked from this message.
>>
>> If you feel someone is being disruptive, or abusive, there is a Code of
>> Conduct process:
>>
>> https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/coc/
>> --
>> -- Christophe Pettus
>>x...@thebuild.com
>>
>>

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Hemil Ruparel]

I don't know on what basis should the complaint be made other than the
peron's entitlement

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 11:24 AM Christophe Pettus  wrote:

>
>
> > On Jan 15, 2021, at 21:51, Hemil Ruparel 
> wrote:
> >
> > This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list so I am
> posting it here. This discussion sparked from this message.
>
> If you feel someone is being disruptive, or abusive, there is a Code of
> Conduct process:
>
> https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/coc/
> --
> -- Christophe Pettus
>x...@thebuild.com
>
>

Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

[Christophe Pettus]

> On Jan 15, 2021, at 21:51, Hemil Ruparel  wrote:
> 
> This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list so I am 
> posting it here. This discussion sparked from this message. 

If you feel someone is being disruptive, or abusive, there is a Code of Conduct 
process:

https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/coc/
--
-- Christophe Pettus
   x...@thebuild.com