Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
John J. Foster ha scritto: On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 09:32:26AM +0800, Mark David Dumlao wrote: I think you're missing the point. I never asked the community to change its rules. I'm only saying that these particular rules were invisible, and there's no way to find out about it, and that's going to be a problem for any user community. OK, but don't you honestly think we could just move on now and talk about Gentoo. Please. Please not. The user is complaining of a *damn serious* problem. His emails were ignored for an undocumented formatting community rule, and it made impossible for him to use the mailing list, without anything alarming him of the problem until late. I do not use html email myself, but what happened to him is surely plain wrong. And what's even worse, instead of people concerning about that and how to solve the situation in the future, there is a lot of people giggling and behaving like OMG H4X0RZ against the lame n00b , ignoring the fact that not everyone in this world has been born uttering his first words on Usenet. Please. He's completely right in demanding apologies and a swift reaction to the problem -because if users cannot access the list due to undocumented stuff, it's a problem. Also: to the people filtering out html mail: why? No, really, *why*? My mail client is set to receive html mail and convert it in plain text transparently, so I *never* see the html. Why can't you do so? It's not 1990 anymore. Could you use a more serious email client? What's the point in filtering out content because of formatting? You dislike html? Have your client convert it in text. You think it's heavier than it should be? Hmm, we live in a world of broadband and 1-Tb hard disks, and emerge -auv world, do you really complain for a couple more kb? I understand the fascination with the Ancient Unix Tools, but don't you think a bit more elasticity is worthwile in 2009? m.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 09:06:07 +0800, Mark David Dumlao wrote: It doesn't matter that there isn't a formal rule. What matters is there is no way to find out about the de-facto rule in one of the standard use-cases of a mailing list - which is to just ask a few quick questions and filter out any irrelevant topics. There is the standard seven day lurk method which has been around since time immemorial. Posting preferences are a matter of local culture, and such things are acquired rather than recorded. When entering any unfamiliar culture, it is a good idea to observe for a while before jumping in and possibly offending. Filing bugs about your inability to do this is about as productive as writing to your MP to complain about being chucked out of the Palace for breaking wind in the presence of royalty. -- Neil Bothwick Power outage at a department store yesterday, Twenty people were trapped on the escalators. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 09:53:07 +0800, Mark David Dumlao wrote: As I said there aren't even any terms to search for when you're getting ignored. If I had known that the problem was html mails from the start, then i would have already corrected the issue before searching the archive. You're missing a major point here. The reason to not use HTML here is not because you might be ignored, that may not be the reason you got no response,but because the majority of this community don't like it. Instead of trying to make your personal problem with a lack of a solution to a particular problem into a general issue, look at trying to fit into the community you joined two years ago. This is a USER list where users try to help each other out of a spirit of co-operation and friendliness. While it is free in cost, there are conditions to the help, one of which is that you respect others. -- Neil Bothwick Bother, said Pooh, Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump, Piglet, meet me in transporter room three signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
I intended to stay silent, however I feel obliged to balance the posts from brullonu...@gmail.com On 22 Dec 2008, at 05:31, Willie Wong wrote: ... But as the thread drags on, your stubborn defense against other posters who request that you drop the subject already because ... *) your vociferous complaints are sounding more and more like you inconvenienced me, and I demand an apology ... really does make you sound like someone with a grudge. +1 I agree wholeheartedly. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
I intended to stay silent, however I feel obliged to balance the posts from brullonu...@gmail.com On 22 Dec 2008, at 02:46, Willie Wong wrote: ... You are still under one assumption: that if you had sent your e-mail in plain text, you won't be ignored. Granted that you will be ignored less if you send e-mail in plain text compared to HTML, it is not always the case. ... I've seen your original post. I've see your repost. And I've seen your query about why you are getting ignored. For me, the answer is simple: I have no freaking clue how to solve your problem. And I suspect the same goes for a lot of people on this list. Many (dare I say most) people on this list don't care for HTML e-mails; many people on this list use a mail client or a mailcap that is capable of dealing HTML e-mails. ... So don't be such a pompous ass. We didn't ignore you because we don't like you. ... So you are pissed that you got ignored. Well, tough. Stop making it sound like hordes of people have came before you and were ignored because of their HTML e-mails, and that unless this reform passes hordes more of people will suffer the same fate. It just ain't true. While I agree that it may be a good idea to have an FAQ somewhere for the mailing lists discussion basic netiquette, your rather personal vendetta is blowing this way out of proportion. +1 I agree wholeheartedly. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 22 Dec 2008, at 01:06, Mark David Dumlao wrote: On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 7:58 AM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: Am I the only one here that sees this is a stupid and completely irrelevant thread? HTML mail is like farting when you meet the Queen - you just don't do it. There isn't a rule about it, it's not an exam question and there never was a formal process that came up with it. But if you do start raising one cheek to split the crack and let rip, the butler might come along nicely and ask you not to. At which point you should say um, gee, thanks, I didn't know that... That was a really dumb analogy. It conveniently ignores the problem and blows the situation out of proportion. ... It's a perfect analogy. You were in breach of etiquette. YOU are blowing the situation out of proportion. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Stroller ha scritto: I intended to stay silent, however I feel obliged to balance the posts from brullonu...@gmail.com You could answer to my emails, argumenting in detail. I hope we're not here to score points, but to understand what to do to solve the situation. In my humble opinion, just mocking the guy and perpetuating the status quo is not a solution, but hey, I could be wrong :) m.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 21 Dec 2008, at 09:46, Mark David Dumlao wrote: ... On perhaps my third or fourth repost, I found a shocking answer: On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 8:24 AM, Nicolas Sebrecht ... You may try by sending a mail using the text format instead of the HTML one. I don't read more than one line when it's written in HTML. I suspect that a lot of contributors do the same here. Please, conform to the netiquette. That was one of the coldest, most invisible, and hardest to troubleshoot communication errors I've ever seen. This is a very poor description. Mr Sebrecht's reply certainly was not a communication error, if that's what you mean. His response was quite reasonable, and it wasn't even terse. I don't know what you mean by using the adjective cold in relation to the communication error that your mailer posts HTML by default. You should file an upstream bug about that with whomever supplies it. Unix is terse, and you should expect that. Mr Sebrecht's reply was polite, helpful informative. ... I had posted and reposted the same message three times over the span of a week - to no joy. You should count yourself lucky that no-one bitchslapped you for this. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Stroller ha scritto: On 21 Dec 2008, at 09:46, Mark David Dumlao wrote: ... On perhaps my third or fourth repost, I found a shocking answer: On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 8:24 AM, Nicolas Sebrecht ... You may try by sending a mail using the text format instead of the HTML one. I don't read more than one line when it's written in HTML. I suspect that a lot of contributors do the same here. Please, conform to the netiquette. That was one of the coldest, most invisible, and hardest to troubleshoot communication errors I've ever seen. This is a very poor description. Mr Sebrecht's reply certainly was not a communication error, if that's what you mean. His response was quite reasonable, and it wasn't even terse. The comunication error is not the answer of mr.Sebrech. It's the fact that, as you put it: no-one bitchslapped you for this. Basically he went ignored for unknown (to him -and to potentially any newbie) reasons, without feedback, for a lot of time until Sebrech told him that under pressure. I don't know what you mean by using the adjective cold in relation to the communication error that your mailer posts HTML by default. You should file an upstream bug about that with whomever supplies it. Why is posting HTML mail a bug? I don't like HTML mail and I try to avoid it as much as possible, but there is nothing intrinsically wrong in HTML mail. m.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 22 Dec 2008, at 11:33, b.n. wrote: Stroller ha scritto: I intended to stay silent, however I feel obliged to balance the posts from brullonu...@gmail.com You could answer to my emails, argumenting in detail. I hope we're not here to score points, but to understand what to do to solve the situation. In my humble opinion, just mocking the guy and perpetuating the status quo is not a solution, but hey, I could be wrong :) There's no point in me argumenting in detail, because it's all been said before. This is a storm in a teacup, and could easily have been avoided if the OP had only asked *politely* what's all the fuss about HTML emails? He could then have filed a bug about the missing netiquette sections of the list's welcome message and simply conducted himself without drawing unnecessary attention. As it is I find it difficult to put my finger on behaviour that would characterise the OP to me as offensive, but I have found the tone of his emails to be persistently antagonising. I would never feel it appropriate to mock the afflicted, and only posted to reassert points that have already been made. I find it not in the least credible to suggest that the original mail was *really* ignored because of its formatting, and the OP is not *in the least* right in demanding apologies. Mr Sebrecht's suggestion to use plain text was perfectly civil courteous, and making one's debut in a community by inappropriately demanding apologies is certain to provoke negative responses. This thread was already *well* out of hand by the time we replied to it, and I see no need to further perpetuate it. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 22 Dec 2008, at 12:59, b.n. wrote: ... I don't know what you mean by using the adjective cold in relation to the communication error that your mailer posts HTML by default. You should file an upstream bug about that with whomever supplies it. Why is posting HTML mail a bug? I don't like HTML mail and I try to avoid it as much as possible, but there is nothing intrinsically wrong in HTML mail. It's a bug because it annoys people. It only tends to annoy me when the sender has set the text to a size which is unreadable or intrusive on my monitor (a size which is undoubtedly perfect on the sender's 800x600 monitor), but it appears to annoy other people more. That there's scope for us to have this discussion demonstrates that it's simply better to post plain-text to mailing lists. Mailers should default to plain text unless the user explicitly chooses otherwise. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Montag 22 Dezember 2008, b.n. wrote: The user is complaining of a *damn serious* problem. His emails were ignored for an undocumented formatting community rule, and it made impossible for him to use the mailing list, without anything alarming him of the problem until late. no. His mails were ignored because nobody had an answer. Shown by the fact that nobody complained about his triple posting or html mails. I do not use html email myself, but what happened to him is surely plain wrong. no, it is just 'life'. And what's even worse, instead of people concerning about that and how to solve the situation in the future, there is a lot of people giggling and behaving like OMG H4X0RZ against the lame n00b , ignoring the fact that not everyone in this world has been born uttering his first words on Usenet. just search for 'html mail' in this list's archive, please? Please. He's completely right in demanding apologies and a swift reaction to the problem -because if users cannot access the list due to undocumented stuff, it's a problem. no, he is absolutly wrong in demanding everything. Nobody is paid to be here or answer his mails. He asked something nobody was able to or willing to answer. The html mails were a different problem. And now he thinks that his problem was caused by html - instead it was caused by a lack of knowledge/willingness in participation. Also: to the people filtering out html mail: why? No, really, *why*? My mail client is set to receive html mail and convert it in plain text transparently, so I *never* see the html. Why can't you do so? It's not 1990 anymore. Could you use a more serious email client? What's the point in filtering out content because of formatting? You dislike html? Have your client convert it in text. You think it's heavier than it should be? Hmm, we live in a world of broadband and 1-Tb hard disks, and emerge -auv world, do you really complain for a couple more kb? since this list has hundreds, maybe thousands recipients - yes, complaining is justified. I understand the fascination with the Ancient Unix Tools, but don't you think a bit more elasticity is worthwile in 2009? elasticity like - first thinking, than attacking everybody?
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Volker Armin Hemmann ha scritto: On Montag 22 Dezember 2008, b.n. wrote: The user is complaining of a *damn serious* problem. His emails were ignored for an undocumented formatting community rule, and it made impossible for him to use the mailing list, without anything alarming him of the problem until late. no. His mails were ignored because nobody had an answer. Shown by the fact that nobody complained about his triple posting or html mails. It has been said more than once that there is people that automatically trashes html emails. So maybe someone had an answer: but he will never know, because these mails never went to intended recipients. I do not use html email myself, but what happened to him is surely plain wrong. no, it is just 'life'. Hey, being murdered in the streets too is 'life', but I wouldn't call it right. And what's even worse, instead of people concerning about that and how to solve the situation in the future, there is a lot of people giggling and behaving like OMG H4X0RZ against the lame n00b , ignoring the fact that not everyone in this world has been born uttering his first words on Usenet. just search for 'html mail' in this list's archive, please? And how could have him searched this if he was completely unaware that html email was actually a problem? Please. He's completely right in demanding apologies and a swift reaction to the problem -because if users cannot access the list due to undocumented stuff, it's a problem. no, he is absolutly wrong in demanding everything. Nobody is paid to be here or answer his mails. He asked something nobody was able to or willing to answer. The html mails were a different problem. And now he thinks that his problem was caused by html - instead it was caused by a lack of knowledge/willingness in participation. His problem could *also* having been caused by html, if people filter html mail out. Also: to the people filtering out html mail: why? No, really, *why*? My mail client is set to receive html mail and convert it in plain text transparently, so I *never* see the html. Why can't you do so? It's not 1990 anymore. Could you use a more serious email client? What's the point in filtering out content because of formatting? You dislike html? Have your client convert it in text. You think it's heavier than it should be? Hmm, we live in a world of broadband and 1-Tb hard disks, and emerge -auv world, do you really complain for a couple more kb? since this list has hundreds, maybe thousands recipients - yes, complaining is justified. Sure, we live in the world of bittorrent and youtube, it will surely be some kb of text here and there that will clog the Series of Tubes. Please, you're kidding me. Anyone having a problem with html mail should, if wanting to be taken seriously: - detail explicitly why his/her mail client cannot be configured to render html email as plain-text and explain explicitly why he/she's locked to such a poor client - otherwise, explicitly admit that is a personal irrational idiosyncracy (just like mine is: I don't like html mails, but there's no real rational behind that, I just find plain text clearer) I understand the fascination with the Ancient Unix Tools, but don't you think a bit more elasticity is worthwile in 2009? elasticity like - first thinking, than attacking everybody? He didn't attack anyone. He was extremly polite, just shocked by the fact that no one informed him of this unwritten rule. And almost everyone answered with contempt and poor manners. This thread basically looks like people answering RTFM! to someone complaining of the absence of the FM. m.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Stroller ha scritto: On 22 Dec 2008, at 12:59, b.n. wrote: ... I don't know what you mean by using the adjective cold in relation to the communication error that your mailer posts HTML by default. You should file an upstream bug about that with whomever supplies it. Why is posting HTML mail a bug? I don't like HTML mail and I try to avoid it as much as possible, but there is nothing intrinsically wrong in HTML mail. It's a bug because it annoys people. It only tends to annoy me when the sender has set the text to a size which is unreadable or intrusive on my monitor (a size which is undoubtedly perfect on the sender's 800x600 monitor), but it appears to annoy other people more. That there's scope for us to have this discussion demonstrates that it's simply better to post plain-text to mailing lists. Mailers should default to plain text unless the user explicitly chooses otherwise. Is your browser rendering everything as plain text? Do you think it is a bug for web servers to serve HTML? We, technically minded people, could find HTML annoying, but most of the world thinks formatting emails with fancy fonts and colors is nicer, or at least they don't care. So many email clients (OSS ones too) default to HTML. We -the plain text fans- are the weird ones. m.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:02 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de wrote: Please. He's completely right in demanding apologies and a swift reaction to the problem -because if users cannot access the list due to undocumented stuff, it's a problem. no, he is absolutly wrong in demanding everything. Nobody is paid to be here or answer his mails. He asked something nobody was able to or willing to answer. The html mails were a different problem. And now he thinks that his problem was caused by html - instead it was caused by a lack of knowledge/willingness in participation. Guys I think you need to take a breather. I didn't demand an apology. I didn't even demand an answer. Go look at the OP and the replies and take an objective look at the words. Whatever the venomous, naggy, pompous, self-righteous - or even injured - attitude it is you might be projecting just isn't present at all. I just said hey, look around you guys, here's a problem, and here's some proof that we have it. btw, why is it a problem? If I was just as surprised at the unexpected tones of the responses then, I'm not now. Whatever's been said has been said, and this is the Internet after all. If it explodes so quickly in everyone's face just to see an issue even mentioned - then I'm apologizing on behalf of everyone. As far as I'm concerned, the problem is identified and the obvious solution - some subscription-level FAQ/warning - works and has already been suggested to the bugs people. There's no need for the rest of this.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Montag 22 Dezember 2008, b.n. wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann ha scritto: And what's even worse, instead of people concerning about that and how to solve the situation in the future, there is a lot of people giggling and behaving like OMG H4X0RZ against the lame n00b , ignoring the fact that not everyone in this world has been born uttering his first words on Usenet. just search for 'html mail' in this list's archive, please? And how could have him searched this if he was completely unaware that html email was actually a problem? he claims to be subscribed to this list for how long? two years? And he missed all the 'don't post html' mails? That is not easy to do. His problem could *also* having been caused by html, if people filter html mail out. some do, most don't. Most are just pissed. since this list has hundreds, maybe thousands recipients - yes, complaining is justified. Sure, we live in the world of bittorrent and youtube, it will surely be some kb of text here and there that will clog the Series of Tubes. Please, you're kidding me. and some people still have to deal with dial up connections - the great world of capitalism. Also, everything has to go over a few sponsored servers. And traffic is not free. Anyone having a problem with html mail should, if wanting to be taken seriously: - detail explicitly why his/her mail client cannot be configured to render html email as plain-text and explain explicitly why he/she's locked to such a poor client - otherwise, explicitly admit that is a personal irrational idiosyncracy (just like mine is: I don't like html mails, but there's no real rational behind that, I just find plain text clearer) I don't like english and want everybody speaking german! Start now! I demand it!. If you think that this demands are stupid, reread your part above. I understand the fascination with the Ancient Unix Tools, but don't you think a bit more elasticity is worthwile in 2009? elasticity like - first thinking, than attacking everybody? He didn't attack anyone. He was extremly polite, just shocked by the fact that no one informed him of this unwritten rule. emm.. no.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
b.n. wrote: We -the plain text fans- are the weird ones. m. I do a lot of text only to but I do like that one. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Stroller wrote: It's a bug because it annoys people. It only tends to annoy me when the sender has set the text to a size which is unreadable or intrusive on my monitor (a size which is undoubtedly perfect on the sender's 800x600 monitor), but it appears to annoy other people more. That there's scope for us to have this discussion demonstrates that it's simply better to post plain-text to mailing lists. Mailers should default to plain text unless the user explicitly chooses otherwise. Stroller. Mailers should also default to useful column sizes, which seem to have failed in the case of your last message. Many mailers do default to plain text, as it is all they handle, it is essentially for them that we use plain text vs html anyway, along with other reasons that are demonstrated at http://www.expita.com/nomime.html. On this list I am sure the reasons are more for text readers and the digests vs Microsoft vulnerabilities. Until a mailer can sense that is it subscribed to a mailing list, they will never default to plain text. Adding pretty markup and pictures or colors is considered an important feature to many people. I agree that it wouldn't hurt to put a link to a mailing list guide, or a few pointers in the welcome post, or on the mailing list webpage. If anything, to prevent users from getting as bent out of shape. As for the replies they get, they generally aren't rude. I would not say it's a piece of Gentoo enculturation, as it is similar on most mailing lists. -Steve signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 22 Dec 2008, at 18:23, Steven Susbauer wrote: Stroller wrote: ... Mailers should default to plain text unless the user explicitly chooses otherwise. ... Mailers should also default to useful column sizes, which seem to have failed in the case of your last message. Keith Moore's [1] Recipient-Friendly MIME generation seems to suggest otherwise [2]: Use the format=flowed option for typed-in text. The format=flowed option (RFC 2646) is an extension to text/plain that allows the sending mail user agent to represent unbroken, wrappable text differently from text which is intended to be represented as-is (without wrapping). It is also designed to be readable on legacy mail readers that don't support format=flowed. One advantage of format=flowed is that wrappable text can be wrapped to suit the width of the recipient's display or output medium - whether it's a big screen or a little PDA. Another advantage of format=flowed is that it works better with quotations, especially when those quotations must be wrapped. I hesitated before posting this, fearing that I would get slapped for promoting the use of MIME on mailing lists. However when I check it appears that virtually all human-written Internet e-mail and a fairly large proportion of automated e-mail is transmitted via SMTP in MIME format. Internet e-mail is so closely associated with the SMTP and MIME standards that it is sometimes called SMTP/MIME e-mail. [3] Sections 4.1 4.2 of RFC 3676 [4], superseding RFC 2646 deal with the MIME Format parameter and its value flowed. I assume the IETF to be authoritative on this, but please feel free to educate me. Stroller. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Moore [2] http://www.cs.utk.edu/~moore/opinions/mime-style.html [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME [4] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3676.txt
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 12/22/08, Volker Armin Hemmann volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de wrote: no. His mails were ignored because nobody had an answer. Shown by the fact that nobody complained about his triple posting or html mails. This is my favourite conspiracy theory as well, not the no-html-theories. We've all been through situations where there just aren't any people with an answer. We've already collected all the html/no-html flamewar-stuff in this thread, so we may as well collect the All-Time Favourite Gentoo Complaints. First one I and (Mr. Wong?) already threw out: lack of manpower / knowledge base. Second favourite one is that the devs are reluctant to mix us proles (users). Well, it's a users' list with some volume, so I can understand that they don't. The Gentoo Gnome dev team is 7 or 8 people (same size as Gentoo KDE team) according to the dev list, so it's not as Gnome is dead on Gentoo. Third one is the confusion of where should I ask question? -- mailing lists, forums or just file bugs in b.g.o? Mr. Dimlao apparently only used this one mailing list -- and I can understand why, the forums are ugly and terrible to use (IMHO phpbb or whatever it is, is terrible to use). Still, unlike this list, the forums seem to be quite actively perused by the devs, so given how clear he is in titling his messages etc, he could've probably gotten a response there. I still don't buy this it's the HTML attachments-theory. I think many people have jumped on this html-attachment theory for no purpose (no other flamewars going on? ;) ). *If you're so sure it's the html in his emails, then why don't you answer his questions about Gnome?* Unless you can then I'd place a large probability on the theory of currently missing the required knowledge on *this* list. The answer may be available by asking in, e.g., the forums. -- Arttu V.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 22 Dec 2008, at 23:18, Stroller wrote: ... I am currently searching my subscription info, the gentoo site, or the mailing list welcome for any hints that html messages are rude or unwanted. I am having some difficulty finding it, that alone is a warning sign that the amount of pre-specialization needed to participate in the community is dangerously prohibitive to the point where it is almost invisible. Oh, $deity. I don't even want to start on this one. sigh/ This is just such a sophisticated well-constructed sentence, contrived to present your innocence in any wrongdoing which may possibly have happened to have occurred. The implication of this is that anyone who sees things differently must be wrongheaded in some way. Oh, and I meant to add here: Posting in plain-text is not an amount of pre-specialization needed to participate in the community [that] is dangerously prohibitive. You post in HTML, you get asked not to. You don't do it again. End of story. One reason your post generated so many responses is that *everyone* has posted once in HTML and been asked not to. Like, everyone on this list, so long ago that we've all each forgotten the occasion. We posted in HTML, we got asked not to, we didn't do it again, end of story. We didn't post a 650 word essay on the subject, and the fact that you felt compelled to do that is sure to make you the focus of some unwanted attention. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Montag 22 Dezember 2008, Arttu V. wrote: *If you're so sure it's the html in his emails, then why don't you answer his questions about Gnome?* well, I saw his mails - and I did not react to them, because I don't use gnome since the 2.0 disaster. Since then I am a happy KDE-only user. Not using gnome makes me skip gnome threads automatically - the few things I remember back from the 1.4 days won't help anyway.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Dienstag 23 Dezember 2008, Stroller wrote: One reason your post generated so many responses is that *everyone* has posted once in HTML and been asked not to. not me. And others did not too. Because 'no html' is a common thing for user related mailing lists.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 12/23/08, Volker Armin Hemmann volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de wrote: On Montag 22 Dezember 2008, Arttu V. wrote: *If you're so sure it's the html in his emails, then why don't you answer his questions about Gnome?* well, I saw his mails - and I did not react to them, because I don't use gnome Sorry, that was meant for the subscribers of the html-attachment conspiracy theory, not you or your text personally. I agree, it was unnclearly typed and should have started with To all html-theory believers:, but I plead for my current slight fever and cough for minor typos and misthoughts. :) since the 2.0 disaster. Since then I am a happy KDE-only user. Not using gnome makes me skip gnome threads automatically - the few things I remember back from the 1.4 days won't help anyway. I run KDE as well (so maybe I'm biased to comment about gnome-related stuff?) and recently fixed a very trivial and minor bug in esound (part of Gnome, possibly outdated?). Happily filed a bug upstream. A month counting so far with no changes to the bug at all, while the Gentoo Gnome team threw the one-line patch in the tree within hours, I think. That's my recent experience with helping with gnome issues. Not really exciting, so I'm skipping the gnome-threads when busy, which is quite often. Gnome-help is under the rock someplace. KDE is known to break constantly (double that for KDE4), so perhaps it has more fixing knowledge spread out there? This still doesn't say that KDE is better than Gnome. When busy I just love using Ubuntu -- it shows what Gnome can be: no fuss, pleasant etc (but the OK-buttons are backwards! ;) ), while Kubuntu is ... a bit clunky feeling. -- Arttu V.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 7:18 AM, Stroller strol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk wrote: You are not stupid. I think your use of English is excellent, you just have to decide upon how you wish to present yourself. Stroller, all I can say is that you are reading too much into my posts and trying to second-guess my intentions. Yes I did express some sentiments of frustration - I made that quite plain, I gave the reason why, I described what probably caused it, substantiated that there is something that could be done about it, and even was the one that took action on it. True, I expressed some shock when the answers weren't as polite as I imagined, and yes, I did actively respond to any specific dismissives of what I thought was the problem. But no, I did not address the community at large in some sort of you owe me attitude. You've already noted that any nuances in my posts are subtle at best, and it would be fine for you to take your own advice and not assume like a problem exists before you should. I just think you're projecting your previous frustrations at people who are asking for apologies into my posts. Everyone has their bad day. But I think it's misguided. For one, I just described above that there aren't any. For two, I really do write like that, almost all the time, and I think many other people do, and I think it would be a much finer world if we all wrote as civil as we could despite any feelings about the situation. If you're that emotionally invested in getting offended by my style, then have a nice day. You're not solving anything. Sounds funny coming from me, but you should probably just ignore the posts then.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Dienstag 23 Dezember 2008, Arttu V. wrote: since the 2.0 disaster. Since then I am a happy KDE-only user. Not using gnome makes me skip gnome threads automatically - the few things I remember back from the 1.4 days won't help anyway. I run KDE as well (so maybe I'm biased to comment about gnome-related stuff?) and recently fixed a very trivial and minor bug in esound (part of Gnome, possibly outdated?). Happily filed a bug upstream. A month counting so far with no changes to the bug at all, while the Gentoo Gnome team threw the one-line patch in the tree within hours, I think. ahem, esound is a broken POS - and everybody knows that. gnome should have kicked that thing out a long time ago... KDE is known to break constantly not for me ;)
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Oh and just to make it clear once and for all, I was perfectly fine with the idea that my problems might go ignored, and in fact my running assumption all this time was that nobody knew or was interested in my particular problems. That's how mailing lists work. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Half the fun of Gentoo is knowing that you're kinda on your own. What I just wanted to talk about was an additional factor that could make the situation worse. It's entirely besides the point why I actually was ignored. Think of it like someone reporting a trivial buffer overflow in an edge use-case of a program. Fixing the issue might still not make his particular use-case work, and the fact is the buffer overflow might still be hard to take advantage of or even encounter anyway. Still needs to be reported though.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 23 Dec 2008, at 00:47, Mark David Dumlao wrote: ... Stroller, all I can say is that you are reading too much into my posts and trying to second-guess my intentions. ... If you're that emotionally invested in getting offended by my style, then have a nice day. That's right. Because it couldn't possibly be your fault the whole list has the hump with you. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 7:47 PM, Mark David Dumlao madum...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 7:18 AM, Stroller strol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk wrote: You are not stupid. I think your use of English is excellent, you just have to decide upon how you wish to present yourself. Stroller, all I can say is that you are reading too much into my posts and trying to second-guess my intentions. Yes I did express some sentiments of frustration - I made that quite plain, I gave the reason why, I described what probably caused it, substantiated that there is something that could be done about it, and even was the one that took action on it. True, I expressed some shock when the answers weren't as polite as I imagined, and yes, I did actively respond to any specific dismissives of what I thought was the problem. But no, I did not address the community at large in some sort of you owe me attitude. You've already noted that any nuances in my posts are subtle at best, and it would be fine for you to take your own advice and not assume like a problem exists before you should. I just think you're projecting your previous frustrations at people who are asking for apologies into my posts. Everyone has their bad day. But I think it's misguided. For one, I just described above that there aren't any. For two, I really do write like that, almost all the time, and I think many other people do, and I think it would be a much finer world if we all wrote as civil as we could despite any feelings about the situation. If you're that emotionally invested in getting offended by my style, then have a nice day. You're not solving anything. Sounds funny coming from me, but you should probably just ignore the posts then. After reading through this whole thread... it occurs to me that A) Not enough people took Alan McKinnon's last post on the thread to heart. B) People seem to forget that every single line of text on the Internet will inevitably be read as though it's laden with feeling (usually both the level of *and* the actual feeling involved are misinterpreted anyhow). C) Writing in a highly detached manner, due to B, will come out to make the writer sound like a pretentious dick. D) (a more direct response to the quoted post) Some people, failing writing in a purely detached manner, write (intentionally or not) in a manner that fails to include themselves, yet still includes the reader... second paragraph is one hell of an example of /exactly/ what Stroller was mentioning, and yet it was still posted without a second thought. E) People never do seem to get bored of feeding the trolls. F) Half the readers of this thread will assume E is a direct statement at them, yet I don't recall assigning 'People' in it, let alone 'the trolls', to any individual parties. G) I sometimes get carried away with lists. ... and 'People' in _B_ Applies to both those presenting those lines of text *and* those reading them. Case in point, am I fumingly angry or laughing hysterically as I post this?** -- Poison [BLX] Joshua M. Murphy ** p.s.: neither, I'm calmly drinking a Mt. Dew. ... I *may* have smirked as I wrote G.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Mark David Dumlao wrote: (snippage) Half the fun of Gentoo is knowing that you're kinda on your own. Hmm - I think the point of this community is that you are anything but on your own. The (many) other posters have been trying to help you realize that you are much more likely to discover this (i.e get timely help) if you take the time to work out how the community works. This is a very helpful community. However sometimes (rarely in my experience) noone knows how to help your specific problem. Often asking again, mentioning (despite it being obvious) that you have had no replies, can encourage someone to specially look at it. regards Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Mark David Dumlao schrieb: [...] If the memo appears somewhere, it might have to do with some transient step of the subscription process. That does make it hard to find now that I'm looking for it. What's up with html e-mails, btw? Most public emails send html e-mail by default, and one imagines that there would be a wide range of capabilities from the readers in the portage tree... I'll just link to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_e-mail Concerning the missing netiquette: It no issue of the mailing list providers, no official policy. It's rather personal preference (or ability) of the members of this list. There are various reasons why it is generally disliked to use HTML-emails: - They unnecessarily make messages larger (especially if you also provide a plain text variant). - Users of mutt and other text mail readers will most likely have to filter your HTML. - There are security concerns with spam, phishing and so on. Therefore many of us never even take a look at the HTML-version of a mail (a simple mail reader setting). - There are accessibility concerns. - They are usually just unnecessary (unless you need tables or such alike in which case I would send them as a separate HTML-part and use the plain text part to explain why you need it). HTH signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Sonntag 21 Dezember 2008, Mark David Dumlao wrote: snip That was one of the coldest, most invisible, and hardest to troubleshoot communication errors I've ever seen. I don't even know where to begin. It's like being in a foreign country and being told, years later, that wearing shoes there meant I'm not serious, so please ignore my opinions.. The funny thing is, I have been subscribed to this mailing list for maybe 2 years now, mostly just for asking questions, but I didn't suspect that I was being ignored since I usually got one or two answers. I would like to express must-needed-to-be-expressed frustration, as there is place for it, and to make aware that that is a serious problem. I am currently searching my subscription info, the gentoo site, or the mailing list welcome for any hints that html messages are rude or unwanted. I am having some difficulty finding it, that alone is a warning sign that the amount of pre-specialization needed to participate in the community is dangerously prohibitive to the point where it is almost invisible. snip This is a _community-wide_bug_, if ever there was a place to file it. I don't recall it being rude to send html emails anywhere else without it appearing in bold letters. Had I known, I would have always used plain formatting. snip almost all linux mailing lists - and almost all technical mailing lists have a no-html rule. If you decide that fance formating is more important than readership, you are on your own. Also every month is a lenghty thread where people tell someone to stop using html. You must have skipped that threads.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
btw, it is not about capabilities - it is about willingness. Most people are not willing to deal with the crap that is html-emails. They are no good. They are huge, they are risky, they make everything harder. And no-html is the norm for almost every mailing list (except maybe outlook- express-fanclub and aol-users).
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 6:50 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de wrote: almost all linux mailing lists - and almost all technical mailing lists have a no-html rule. If you decide that fance formating is more important than readership, you are on your own. Hey I don't need that tone. As I said if I knew the informal rule I'd follow it, no issue. It's just that many mail readers make it transparent to the user whether mail is being read or written in plaintext or html, although of course there are obvious and easy to click options to do both. Also every month is a lenghty thread where people tell someone to stop using html. You must have skipped that threads. Like I said, I usually just use the list to ask a question or two every once in a while. In-material prefiltered content is probably the wrong place to put advice like that, because by then it's already too late and many people just skim through content till they see something interesting anyway. It's like getting a message about not using an all lowercase password hidden in your system logs. Yes, technically you're supposed to read your logs every once in a while, but most people filter their use of such logs only for specific problems and would transparently miss it.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
User Relations bug 251931 http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=251931
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Sonntag 21 Dezember 2008, Mark David Dumlao wrote: User Relations bug 251931 http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=251931 Access Denied You are not authorized to access bug #251931. Please press Back and try again.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 5:21 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de wrote: On Sonntag 21 Dezember 2008, Mark David Dumlao wrote: User Relations bug 251931 http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=251931 Access Denied You are not authorized to access bug #251931. Please press Back and try again. Wow. I didn't expect user...@gentoo.org bugs to be private. I can't find a user interface mechanism to make it public (the checkbox is grayed out), and even ended up accidentally restricting myself from viewing it. I ended up duplicating it in as bug 252102... Here's the bug report in plain: === report Summary:html emails silently ignored on gentoo mailing lists without needed prior warnings to subscription e-mails on various gentoo mailing lists are silently ignored if they are available in html format. No or insufficient prior warnings against html e-mails are part of the mailing list subscription process, the mailing list pages, or documentation pointing to the mailing lists. Because they are ignored silently, senders are not even aware that there is a communication issue at all, and by default will assume that people are just uninterested in their particular thread or topic. duplicate of bug 251931, after bugzilla user error rendering bug inaccessible to reporter. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: Case 1: Mailing list background information 1. Look for a mailing list to subscribe to at the gentoo website (http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml) 2. Observe that there are no warnings against html emails. === Case 2: Mailing list subscription information 1. Send a subscription email to listname+subscr...@lists.gentoo.org 2. Receive your confirmation mail. 3. Send a subscription confirmation / reply to the mail. 4. Observe that there are no warnings against html emails. === Case 3: Every day usage 1. Formulate an interesting, solvable question giving plenty of information. 2. Post the question to a subscribed gentoo mailing list 3. Observe a marked difference in reply volume / rate to other posts compared to your post, typicaly at zero. Actual Results: Users do not read or reply to mails sent in html format. Postings get silently ignored. There are no warnings against sending html formats. Expected Results: Warnings at the mailing list listing, subscription process, and possibly when sending regarding sending html emails. Possibly a published netiquette guide for the gentoo mailing list. I have been informed that there are periodic anti-html postings in the mailing list itself. This is a wrong solution, because the usage patterns of a developer mailing list have to do with software-based skimming and filtering for topics. It is especially relevant for users to be aware of an effective community-wide html embargo, since many mail readers transparently read and write plain and html emails, and many even default to them. === /report
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Sonntag 21 Dezember 2008, Mark David Dumlao wrote: On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 5:21 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de wrote: On Sonntag 21 Dezember 2008, Mark David Dumlao wrote: User Relations bug 251931 http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=251931 Access Denied You are not authorized to access bug #251931. Please press Back and try again. Wow. I didn't expect user...@gentoo.org bugs to be private. I can't find a user interface mechanism to make it public (the checkbox is grayed out), and even ended up accidentally restricting myself from viewing it. I ended up duplicating it in as bug 252102... Here's the bug report in plain: === report Summary:html emails silently ignored on gentoo mailing lists without needed prior warnings to subscription e-mails on various gentoo mailing lists are silently ignored if they are available in html format. No or insufficient prior warnings against html e-mails are part of the mailing list subscription process, the mailing list pages, or documentation pointing to the mailing lists. Because they are ignored silently, senders are not even aware that there is a communication issue at all, and by default will assume that people are just uninterested in their particular thread or topic. emm - they are silently ignored by the people, not the system - and usually someone complains about them - it was just bad luck in your part. Also I am pretty sure that userrel is the wrong recipient. Userrel is for cases when two users are insulting each other. Because of that userrel bugs are private. You should have opened the bug with infra or docu - maybe you can change the assignment - if not I am sure somebody from userrel will.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 6:49 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de wrote: emm - they are silently ignored by the people, not the system - and usually someone complains about them - it was just bad luck in your part. It is in this particular case where the people _are_ the system. It just so happens that the interface to the system - the mailing list subscription - isn't too clear on the characteristics and behaviors of the system, in a way that ordinary usage results in silent errors.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:46:31 +0800, Mark David Dumlao wrote: That was one of the coldest, most invisible, and hardest to troubleshoot communication errors I've ever seen. I don't even know where to begin. It's like being in a foreign country and being told, years later, that wearing shoes there meant I'm not serious, so please ignore my opinions.. The funny thing is, I have been subscribed to this mailing list for maybe 2 years now, mostly just for asking questions, but I didn't suspect that I was being ignored since I usually got one or two answers. I wonder how it is possible to read this list for two years and never see a no HTML please post. Filing bugs is not the answer either, freedom is important, which means you are free to post in HTML and others are equally free to ignore you.# -- Neil Bothwick WinErr 013: Unexpected error - Huh ? signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Monday 22 December 2008 01:35:41 Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:46:31 +0800, Mark David Dumlao wrote: That was one of the coldest, most invisible, and hardest to troubleshoot communication errors I've ever seen. I don't even know where to begin. It's like being in a foreign country and being told, years later, that wearing shoes there meant I'm not serious, so please ignore my opinions.. The funny thing is, I have been subscribed to this mailing list for maybe 2 years now, mostly just for asking questions, but I didn't suspect that I was being ignored since I usually got one or two answers. I wonder how it is possible to read this list for two years and never see a no HTML please post. Filing bugs is not the answer either, freedom is important, which means you are free to post in HTML and others are equally free to ignore you.# Rightee-o boys and girls, this is the point where the pretty girl from candid camera reveals that you are all suckers and points to the hidden camera behind the mirror: Am I the only one here that sees this is a stupid and completely irrelevant thread? HTML mail is like farting when you meet the Queen - you just don't do it. There isn't a rule about it, it's not an exam question and there never was a formal process that came up with it. But if you do start raising one cheek to split the crack and let rip, the butler might come along nicely and ask you not to. At which point you should say um, gee, thanks, I didn't know that... -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 7:58 AM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: Am I the only one here that sees this is a stupid and completely irrelevant thread? HTML mail is like farting when you meet the Queen - you just don't do it. There isn't a rule about it, it's not an exam question and there never was a formal process that came up with it. But if you do start raising one cheek to split the crack and let rip, the butler might come along nicely and ask you not to. At which point you should say um, gee, thanks, I didn't know that... That was a really dumb analogy. It conveniently ignores the problem and blows the situation out of proportion. As I said, very many mail readers _default_ to html mails, and a significant part of user to user contact is happily oblivious to it. It just doesn't come up in everyday parlance. Forgive this one seething reaction to your uncalled-for ridiculous holier-than-thou attitude, but the Internet didn't stop growing 10 years ago. It doesn't matter that there isn't a formal rule. What matters is there is no way to find out about the de-facto rule in one of the standard use-cases of a mailing list - which is to just ask a few quick questions and filter out any irrelevant topics.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Monday 22 December 2008 03:06:07 Mark David Dumlao wrote: On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 7:58 AM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: Am I the only one here that sees this is a stupid and completely irrelevant thread? HTML mail is like farting when you meet the Queen - you just don't do it. There isn't a rule about it, it's not an exam question and there never was a formal process that came up with it. But if you do start raising one cheek to split the crack and let rip, the butler might come along nicely and ask you not to. At which point you should say um, gee, thanks, I didn't know that... That was a really dumb analogy. It conveniently ignores the problem and blows the situation out of proportion. As I said, very many mail readers _default_ to html mails, and a significant part of user to user contact is happily oblivious to it. It just doesn't come up in everyday parlance. Forgive this one seething reaction to your uncalled-for ridiculous holier-than-thou attitude, but the Internet didn't stop growing 10 years ago. It doesn't matter that there isn't a formal rule. What matters is there is no way to find out about the de-facto rule in one of the standard use-cases of a mailing list - which is to just ask a few quick questions and filter out any irrelevant topics. Ooooh, touchy-touchy :-) You should all have a good long hard look at yourselves about this thread - it looks EXACTLY the same as my 6 and 11 year old kids bicker between themselves about who took who's swimming goggles first -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Mark David Dumlao wrote: On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 7:58 AM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: Am I the only one here that sees this is a stupid and completely irrelevant thread? HTML mail is like farting when you meet the Queen - you just don't do it. There isn't a rule about it, it's not an exam question and there never was a formal process that came up with it. But if you do start raising one cheek to split the crack and let rip, the butler might come along nicely and ask you not to. At which point you should say um, gee, thanks, I didn't know that... That was a really dumb analogy. It conveniently ignores the problem and blows the situation out of proportion. As I said, very many mail readers _default_ to html mails, and a significant part of user to user contact is happily oblivious to it. It just doesn't come up in everyday parlance. Forgive this one seething reaction to your uncalled-for ridiculous holier-than-thou attitude, but the Internet didn't stop growing 10 years ago. It doesn't matter that there isn't a formal rule. What matters is there is no way to find out about the de-facto rule in one of the standard use-cases of a mailing list - which is to just ask a few quick questions and filter out any irrelevant topics. A few quick observations: a) You're probably not going to change the way people perceive html email on this list b) just because you don't read all of the threads on this list doesn't mean you're exempt from them. There are plenty times that somebody asks a question and the answer is, search the archives for XYZ, we already covered this, and please search before asking. This is one of those threads c) continuing along this line runs the risk of pissing off the very people who you're asking for help. I get that you don't like the way things are, but this list is a community and we all agree to abide by certain rules. The rules don't change every time a new person joins the community. Granted, it would be nice if the mailing list FAQ said 'No HTML mails and don't top post' along with the rule on vacation emails. However, this list isn't the forum as this is gentoo-*user*; a lot of people here are users and not devs. Granted, I know some people here are devs but this is still a *user* list. As I was trying to check everything in the thread I read Alan McKinnon's message (that he just sent) reminding us to stop acting like kids, so I'm going to stop here. G'Night all!
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
But it is a problem that must be addressed. It doesn't help to boil the situation into an inaccurate but amusing caricature of the problem. That's how the many bad interfaces get developed. The problem is solved for my case. I'm not going to be using html mails. But ignoring the problem isn't going to make it disappear for everyone else - there isn't a way for a user to find out they're being ignored. That's all that needs to be said.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:24 AM, Eric Martin freak4u...@gmail.com wrote: b) just because you don't read all of the threads on this list doesn't mean you're exempt from them. There are plenty times that somebody asks a question and the answer is, search the archives for XYZ, we already covered this, and please search before asking. This is one of those threads This isn't one of those threads. In the vast majority of those cases, there is at least the item to search for. There wasn't one in this case. c) continuing along this line runs the risk of pissing off the very people who you're asking for help. Shake up who needs to be shaken up. If people get offended by even getting suggested to the fact that their rules are hard to detect, they are going to be offended by a lot of things anyway, and questions are going to be some of them. I get that you don't like the way things are, but this list is a community and we all agree to abide by certain rules. The rules don't change every time a new person joins the community. I think you're missing the point. I never asked the community to change its rules. I'm only saying that these particular rules were invisible, and there's no way to find out about it, and that's going to be a problem for any user community.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Mark David Dumlao wrote: But it is a problem that must be addressed. It doesn't help to boil the situation into an inaccurate but amusing caricature of the problem. That's how the many bad interfaces get developed. The problem is solved for my case. I'm not going to be using html mails. But ignoring the problem isn't going to make it disappear for everyone else - there isn't a way for a user to find out they're being ignored. That's all that needs to be said. I've seen plenty of emails going around requesting people not top-post and not to post via html. I don't think it's as big of a problem as this thread makes it out to be. While I'm sure some people do ignore posts that fall into those categories, there's not really much you or I can do about it. You admit that you ignore anything that you're not looking for, maybe we should address that group of members on this list. One could argue that everybody should read every message and comment if they can, but that's not what happens. Do you honestly believe that people who ignore html emails are doing something different than you for ignoring any post you don't care about? That argument can be easily silenced when you realize that some people don't care for html formatted email. Anyway, my purpose in sending that last post was to say my piece and shut up, not continue this thread as I'm getting tired of it and I'm going to ignore it very soon.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Mark David Dumlao wrote: On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:24 AM, Eric Martin freak4u...@gmail.com wrote: b) just because you don't read all of the threads on this list doesn't mean you're exempt from them. There are plenty times that somebody asks a question and the answer is, search the archives for XYZ, we already covered this, and please search before asking. This is one of those threads This isn't one of those threads. In the vast majority of those cases, there is at least the item to search for. There wasn't one in this case. c) continuing along this line runs the risk of pissing off the very people who you're asking for help. Shake up who needs to be shaken up. If people get offended by even getting suggested to the fact that their rules are hard to detect, they are going to be offended by a lot of things anyway, and questions are going to be some of them. I get that you don't like the way things are, but this list is a community and we all agree to abide by certain rules. The rules don't change every time a new person joins the community. I think you're missing the point. I never asked the community to change its rules. I'm only saying that these particular rules were invisible, and there's no way to find out about it, and that's going to be a problem for any user community. this isn't some big secret, you just don't read all of the threads. There are 5,120 results for html+email when searching the gmane archives of gentoo-user. The link below is the search I used, sorted by date (descending). http://search.gmane.org/?query=html+emailauthor=group=gmane.linux.gentoo.usersort=dateDEFAULTOP=andxP=Zhtml%09ZemailxFILTERS=Glinux.gentoo.user---A
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Eric Martin freak4u...@gmail.com wrote: I've seen plenty of emails going around requesting people not top-post and not to post via html. I don't think it's as big of a problem as this thread makes it out to be. While I'm sure some people do ignore posts that fall into those categories, there's not really much you or I can do about it. I don't like defeatist attitudes just because they're related to community changes. There are certain parts of the community that can be readily improved (typically relating to centralized rules, FAQs, etc) and certain parts that are very difficult to improve (typically relating to the users' attitudes). If someone makes even a passing note of this on the website, then my single bug report might do the work of several dozen dont post in html mails over time. Do you honestly believe that people who ignore html emails are doing something different than you for ignoring any post you don't care about? That argument can be easily silenced when you realize that some people don't care for html formatted email. That's a pretty easy question to answer and substantiate. Yes. Posts are typically discriminated upon based on their content. On the other hand, html posts are discriminated based upon their formatting. This means questions that people would otherwise have answered get ignored. Content discrimination is a null transaction. Formatting discrimination is at some times a null transaction and at some times negative (friction).
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Eric Martin freak4u...@gmail.com wrote: this isn't some big secret, you just don't read all of the threads. There are 5,120 results for html+email when searching the gmane archives of gentoo-user. The link below is the search I used, sorted by date (descending). As I said there aren't even any terms to search for when you're getting ignored. If I had known that the problem was html mails from the start, then i would have already corrected the issue before searching the archive.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Mark David Dumlao wrote: On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Eric Martin freak4u...@gmail.com wrote: I've seen plenty of emails going around requesting people not top-post and not to post via html. I don't think it's as big of a problem as this thread makes it out to be. While I'm sure some people do ignore posts that fall into those categories, there's not really much you or I can do about it. I don't like defeatist attitudes just because they're related to community changes. There are certain parts of the community that can be readily improved (typically relating to centralized rules, FAQs, etc) and certain parts that are very difficult to improve (typically relating to the users' attitudes). If someone makes even a passing note of this on the website, then my single bug report might do the work of several dozen dont post in html mails over time. Do you honestly believe that people who ignore html emails are doing something different than you for ignoring any post you don't care about? That argument can be easily silenced when you realize that some people don't care for html formatted email. That's a pretty easy question to answer and substantiate. Yes. Posts are typically discriminated upon based on their content. On the other hand, html posts are discriminated based upon their formatting. This means questions that people would otherwise have answered get ignored. Content discrimination is a null transaction. Formatting discrimination is at some times a null transaction and at some times negative (friction). I looked at your original post, the person who replied to you did so in a concise manner that he doesn't like html emails. On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 8:24 AM, Nicolas Sebrecht nicolas.s-...@lapostes.net wrote: On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:06:26PM +0800, Mark David Dumlao wrote: er, anyone? You may try by sending a mail using the text format instead of the HTML one. I don't read more than one line when it's written in HTML. I suspect that a lot of contributors do the same here. Please, conform to the netiquette. That was one of the coldest, most invisible, and hardest to troubleshoot communication errors I've ever seen. I don't even know where to begin. I don't know if he could have made that any clearer. That being said, I'm done contributing to spam on the list. Please bottom post and post in a text only format. For many people (myself included) this is the first mailing list they joined. Nobody was handed a manual up front, for the most part you learn as you go.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Eric Martin freak4u...@gmail.com wrote: I don't know if he could have made that any clearer. That being said, I'm done contributing to spam on the list. Please bottom post and post in a text only format. For many people (myself included) this is the first mailing list they joined. Nobody was handed a manual up front, for the most part you learn as you go. The bug report is not about the clarity of an already-late reminder. The problem is that it was late for me, it will be late for a few hundred other posters after me, and it will be late for a few hundred posters after them unless something is done about it. Hence the bug report. Hopefully a presubscription FAQ or guide could at least curb such problems.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On 12/22/08, Mark David Dumlao madum...@gmail.com wrote:
The bug report is not about the clarity of an already-late reminder.
The problem is that it was late for me, it will be late for a few
hundred other posters after me, and it will be late for a few hundred
posters after them unless something is done about it. Hence the bug
report. Hopefully a presubscription FAQ or guide could at least curb
such problems.
But the confusing part here is that most people *will* get the warning
from the oldtimers even when they've already transgressed against
the netiquette. Even you got one now, once you didn't have a
Gnome-specific subject like your emails in the archives.
So, I have another theory, related to the cry Gentoo is dying!
${HERD} is down to one dev only!, i.e, low manpower. My guess is that
Gentoo (or at least this gentoo-user list) is low on Gnome-proficient
commenters.
That would make the E17, Fluxbox, ratpoison and KDE-running oldtimers
skip your (correctly Gnome-subjected) emails altogether and then there
would be no Gnome-using-oldtimer to catch the ball.
Does this sound plausible?
--
Arttu V.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 09:53:07AM +0800, Penguin Lover Mark David Dumlao squawked: As I said there aren't even any terms to search for when you're getting ignored. If I had known that the problem was html mails from the start, then i would have already corrected the issue before searching the archive. You are still under one assumption: that if you had sent your e-mail in plain text, you won't be ignored. Granted that you will be ignored less if you send e-mail in plain text compared to HTML, it is not always the case. Of the threads that I've started on this list, at least a couple in recent memory has been just me posting a question, receiving no response, and me posting the solution after I bit the bullet and tried to figure out the problem myself. Sometimes you just run into a problem that nobody knows how to solve. I am one of those people who dislike HTML e-mails in general, but that doesn't make me send all HTML mails into /dev/null. I have a mailcap entry to dump HTML to text using lynx and so I can read the e-mail at least using Mutt. Despite my distaste for HTML e-mails, I don't go around broadcasting it: I only mention it if I am responding to a query that I have an inkling of an idea about how to answer, when the OP decided to send an HTML e-mail. So why this anecdote? The point is that I read almost every e-mail on this list. I've seen your original post. I've see your repost. And I've seen your query about why you are getting ignored. For me, the answer is simple: I have no freaking clue how to solve your problem. And I suspect the same goes for a lot of people on this list. Many (dare I say most) people on this list don't care for HTML e-mails; many people on this list use a mail client or a mailcap that is capable of dealing HTML e-mails. Granted there are a few stalwarts who do ignore HTML e-mails as a policy, I doubt the number is as large as you are imagining it. If you have been paying attention at all the past two years you've subscribed to this list (something you admitted to not doing), you would've noticed that very few questions were *ignored* by the list. And you would have noticed also that many (if not most) of those questions were written in plain text. And that plenty of the questions posted in HTML received answers, the first three of which often including a polite request to turn off HTML e-mails. And lastly that virtually all those questions that have no followups were rather esoteric in nature and hard to answer. So don't be such a pompous ass. We didn't ignore you because we don't like you. There's never a policy by the gentoo-user mailing list to automatically, collectively ignore all e-mails sent in HTML. We are not that well organized. And we are certainly not the borg collective. It is a lot more likely that your query received no response because no one know how to answer or how to diagnose your problem. What do you in fact propose the FAQ say? That we prefer plain-text emails? Or that if you post in HTML, there's a chance that some members may ignore your posts? It sounds to me from this thread that you are advocating more of the latter rather than the former (that you are pissed off because your post may have been ignored because of formatting and not of content). And to me a warning like that is just plain silly. You can equally well add a disclaimer that Joerg Schilling will chew you out if you use cdrkit instead of cdrtools (Joerg, no disrespect meant at all by that, just stating a fact that you will in fact do so). So you are pissed that you got ignored. Well, tough. Stop making it sound like hordes of people have came before you and were ignored because of their HTML e-mails, and that unless this reform passes hordes more of people will suffer the same fate. It just ain't true. While I agree that it may be a good idea to have an FAQ somewhere for the mailing lists discussion basic netiquette, your rather personal vendetta is blowing this way out of proportion. Regards, W P.S. I really am not that surprised that your query went unanswered. I don't know whether this is statistically true or not, but from reading e-mails on this list I have the feeling that users on this list gravitates more towrad KDE than GNOME. I personally use neither. And don't y'all dare start a KDE/GNOME flameware because of this postscript. ;p -- What are you talking about? Never mind, eat the fruit. You know, this place almost looks like the Garden of Eden. Eat the fruit. Sounds quite like it too. Sortir en Pantoufles: up 745 days, 1:02
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Mark David Dumlao wrote: On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Eric Martin freak4u...@gmail.com wrote: I've seen plenty of emails going around requesting people not top-post and not to post via html. I don't think it's as big of a problem as this thread makes it out to be. While I'm sure some people do ignore posts that fall into those categories, there's not really much you or I can do about it. If someone makes even a passing note of this on the website, then my single bug report might do the work of several dozen dont post in html mails over time. I agree with that. Do you honestly believe that people who ignore html emails are doing something different than you for ignoring any post you don't care about? That argument can be easily silenced when you realize that some people don't care for html formatted email. That's a pretty easy question to answer and substantiate. Yes. Posts are typically discriminated upon based on their content. On the other hand, html posts are discriminated based upon their formatting. This means questions that people would otherwise have answered get ignored. Content discrimination is a null transaction. Formatting discrimination is at some times a null transaction and at some times negative (friction). I sort of do this. If someone posts a question about apache, mysql or something I am not familiar with, I usually mark the thread as read and move on. I may read the first post tho. I have !VERY! little information and no experience with those at all. No need cluttering my brain with more info than I can handle. lol I think the point that is being missed and that I have seen posted in the past is this. Some people are text only, as in they only have a console terminal, and they can't read html easily if at all. If you are needing help with say apache, mysql or some other server type software, they are the very ones you need help from. They likely have a lot of experience in that chair. I'm out of change I think. This may be worth nothing at all. ;-) Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 09:32:26AM +0800, Mark David Dumlao wrote: I think you're missing the point. I never asked the community to change its rules. I'm only saying that these particular rules were invisible, and there's no way to find out about it, and that's going to be a problem for any user community. OK, but don't you honestly think we could just move on now and talk about Gentoo. Please. festus -- It is not unusual for those at the wrong end of the club to have a clearer picture of reality than those who wield it. Noam Chomsky pgpHXjjRPXU4L.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:46 AM, Willie Wong ww...@princeton.edu wrote: So don't be such a pompous ass. We didn't ignore you because we don't like you. There's never a policy by the gentoo-user mailing list to automatically, collectively ignore all e-mails sent in HTML. We are not that well organized. And we are certainly not the borg collective. It is a lot more likely that your query received no response because no one know how to answer or how to diagnose your problem. What do you in fact propose the FAQ say? That we prefer plain-text emails? Or that if you post in HTML, there's a chance that some members may ignore your posts? It sounds to me from this thread that you are advocating more of the latter rather than the former (that you are pissed off because your post may have been ignored because of formatting and not of content). And to me a warning like that is just plain silly. You can equally well add a disclaimer that Joerg Schilling will chew you out if you use cdrkit instead of cdrtools (Joerg, no disrespect meant at all by that, just stating a fact that you will in fact do so). So you are pissed that you got ignored. Well, tough. Stop making it sound like hordes of people have came before you and were ignored because of their HTML e-mails, and that unless this reform passes hordes more of people will suffer the same fate. It just ain't true. While I agree that it may be a good idea to have an FAQ somewhere for the mailing lists discussion basic netiquette, your rather personal vendetta is blowing this way out of proportion. Pompous ass? Personal Vendetta? Pissed off? What world is this? One bug report is just an announcement that there is a problem. It might seem to you that people get on a high horse when they say that, but a lot of us like solving problems. It's the first few reactions here that were too pompous for taste. Why, the OP was a _question_.
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 09:16:05PM -0600, Penguin Lover Dale squawked: This is my two cents. Since when someone comes here and posts a html message they get told not to use html anyway, why not let them know beforehand that html is not the norm on this list? I don't think it would hurt to put that on the website where the mailing lists subscribe info is and also in the email that confirms the subscription. I wouldn't mind seeing that part in bold or something in the email to make sure it is seen. I suspect this would solve a lot of problems in the long run. Uh... so how will you put something in bold in an e-mail without HTML? And if you do use HTML, is it not hypocritical to tell the users, in bold nontheless, that they should not? ;p W -- `Er, hey Earthman...' `Arthur,' said Arthur. `Yeah, could you just sort of keep this robot with you and guard this end of the passageway. OK?' `Guard?' said Arthur. `What from? You just said there's no one here.' `Yeah, well, just for safety, OK?' said Zaphod. `Whose? Yours or mine?' - Arthur drawing the short straw on Magrathea. Sortir en Pantoufles: up 745 days, 3:11
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Willie Wong wrote: On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 09:16:05PM -0600, Penguin Lover Dale squawked: This is my two cents. Since when someone comes here and posts a html message they get told not to use html anyway, why not let them know beforehand that html is not the norm on this list? I don't think it would hurt to put that on the website where the mailing lists subscribe info is and also in the email that confirms the subscription. I wouldn't mind seeing that part in bold or something in the email to make sure it is seen. I suspect this would solve a lot of problems in the long run. Uh... so how will you put something in bold in an e-mail without HTML? And if you do use HTML, is it not hypocritical to tell the users, in bold nontheless, that they should not? ;p W Well, just do this. *list netiquette* If I recall correctly, if the person is set up to get html, that will be in bold. If it is text only then they just see the *'s. I have noticed in the past that mine has done this so I guess some other clients would too. Maybe I am just unique. ;-) Sweet huh? lol I'm sure there are other ways to do this to tho. More than one way to skin a cat in this situation. All the gurus around here should be able to come up with something. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Willie Wong wrote: On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 09:16:05PM -0600, Penguin Lover Dale squawked: This is my two cents. Since when someone comes here and posts a html message they get told not to use html anyway, why not let them know beforehand that html is not the norm on this list? I don't think it would hurt to put that on the website where the mailing lists subscribe info is and also in the email that confirms the subscription. I wouldn't mind seeing that part in bold or something in the email to make sure it is seen. I suspect this would solve a lot of problems in the long run. Uh... so how will you put something in bold in an e-mail without HTML? And if you do use HTML, is it not hypocritical to tell the users, in bold nontheless, that they should not? ;p W Some mail readers convert *asterisks* as bold statements. I believe it is the generally accepted way to make a section stand out when dealing with plain text. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 12:03:36PM +0800, Penguin Lover Mark David Dumlao squawked: Pompous ass? Personal Vendetta? Pissed off? What world is this? One bug report is just an announcement that there is a problem. It might seem to you that people get on a high horse when they say that, but a lot of us like solving problems. It's the first few reactions here that were too pompous for taste. Why, the OP was a _question_. Yes, the OP was a question. And I well sympathize with you for the first dozen exchanges here on the issue. I applaud you for filing a bug on b.g.o., albeit in my personal opionion it should go under documentation and not userrel. But as the thread drags on, your stubborn defense against other posters who request that you drop the subject already because *) the community here can't change anything on the gentoo website. You've already filed a bug. Why not just wait for it bear fruit? *) your vociferous complaints are sounding more and more like you inconvenienced me, and I demand an apology and less like hey guys, here's a suggestion, why not let us do such and such. really does make you sound like someone with a grudge. I mean, (not that I agree with how those first responses to your post about the bug report were written) when people dismiss your complaints as a non-issue, and the best response you can come up with is that I have been inconvenienced. I have no other data points but surely what happened to me have and will happen to others, you are not doing a good job convincing people of your case. For most technical bug reports, one of the key issues is reproducibility: if something can be reproduced by others, then it is a bug with the code; if something can not be reproduced by anyone else, then it is most likely something on your end that is broken. And lo! Even you own experience should've told you that your HTML posts are unlikely to be the problem: a quick search on gmane shows that of the roughly a dozen threads you have started on this list, only three have gone unanswered: and they are http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/195121 about gnome-btdownload http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/202853 about gnome shortcuts for rhythmbox and the current one. If anything, I would hardly blame HTML e-mail for your problems. I don't know about you, if my posting history is any like yours, my first working hypothesis would be that gentoo-user is a lousy place to ask Gnome questions. Look here, I perfectly agree with you on the issue that you brought up: I think there should be an FAQ/Netiquette page for the list. But not for the same motivation as you: I believe your case is a freak case; that most posts don't get ignored even if they are in HTML. I believe an FAQ/Netiquette page can be a good idea, and your case serves as a particularly unfortunate point of illustration. But to generalize from your individual case to the whole of the mailing list, and giving this opinion while admitting clearly that you do not read most of the posts to the list, and claiming your own personal browsing habit is the typical, and using these to argue that an FAQ is an absolute necessity, these makes you sound like you have perhaps too high an opinion of your own self. Your curt response to my post only confirms this belief of mine: you obviously did not read my post carefully, and only skimmed it, thinking the world is against you, and were immediately tripped up by the deliberately incendiary keywords that I planted in the post. I try to offer an alternative explanation to why you may not have received a response to your very original query; that we are not all such big assholes you imagine us to be who immediately delete all HTML e-mails. And there you go, somehow deducing from my post that I have a disagreement with people who file bug reports. Go figure. Since you asked: welcome to the unwashed masses of the internet, where yours truly will flame any and all who acts sillily. ;p Anyway, I apologize for calling you a pompous ass just for the sake of my little social experiment. But I hope you really consider what I have said in these two posts. You really don't want to (whether knowingly or unknowingly) put-off the old-timers on this list. They are a wonderful source of information. Shalom, W -- I don't approve of political jokes... I've seen too many of them get elected. Sortir en Pantoufles: up 745 days, 3:14
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 10:39:30PM -0600, Penguin Lover Dale squawked: Well, just do this. *list netiquette* If I recall correctly, if the person is set up to get html, that will be in bold. If it is text only then they just see the *'s. I have noticed in the past that mine has done this so I guess some other clients would too. Maybe I am just unique. ;-) Sweet huh? lol I'm sure there are other ways to do this to tho. More than one way to skin a cat in this situation. All the gurus around here should be able to come up with something. On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 11:05:58PM -0600, Penguin Lover Steven Susbauer squawked: Some mail readers convert *asterisks* as bold statements. I believe it is the generally accepted way to make a section stand out when dealing with plain text. Ah. Yes, slrn does that also for newsgroups. I've always thought of that as 'emphasis' and not 'bold', probably because I see it more often printed with the asterisks then as bold text. So my apologies that Dale's reference was lost on me. However, this begs the question: on such a mail reader, if I write: rm -rf *.* does it show up just as 'rm -rf one extra dark dot'? ;) W -- I am so happy that Willetta is in my life. What would I do without her? Probably go insane. In fact, I am insanely in love with Willetta, so I am insane right now... but... Sortir en Pantoufles: up 745 days, 4:20
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard to find netiquette, enculturation bug. (Was: Re: [gentoo-user] GNOME: Cant logout and Lock Screen is showing different background from GNOME screensaver)
Willie Wong wrote: On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 10:39:30PM -0600, Penguin Lover Dale squawked: Well, just do this. *list netiquette* If I recall correctly, if the person is set up to get html, that will be in bold. If it is text only then they just see the *'s. I have noticed in the past that mine has done this so I guess some other clients would too. Maybe I am just unique. ;-) Sweet huh? lol I'm sure there are other ways to do this to tho. More than one way to skin a cat in this situation. All the gurus around here should be able to come up with something. On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 11:05:58PM -0600, Penguin Lover Steven Susbauer squawked: Some mail readers convert *asterisks* as bold statements. I believe it is the generally accepted way to make a section stand out when dealing with plain text. Ah. Yes, slrn does that also for newsgroups. I've always thought of that as 'emphasis' and not 'bold', probably because I see it more often printed with the asterisks then as bold text. So my apologies that Dale's reference was lost on me. However, this begs the question: on such a mail reader, if I write: rm -rf *.* does it show up just as 'rm -rf one extra dark dot'? ;) W No apologies needed here. You have any idea how many times I have forgot something someone just told me, like two seconds ago. O_O LOL Was sweet tho huh? I finally came up with something worth reading. Can I have two cents back now? I need them, badly. Dale :-) :-)
