Rob Richardson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:
: A general thought: Subject lines should tell people what the
: subject of the e-mail is. On many lists and newsgroups
: dedicated to programming languages, many of the most
: knowledgeable people won't bother reading messages with vague
: subjects like "Help Required". They don't want to waste their
: time on things they might not be able to help with. You will
: get much better results with subjects like "How can I use CGI
: to go to a URL?"
I don't frequent the USENET much any more, but I used to
filter certain questions out by using the subject. As I recall
I marked posts as read that had the words "newbie" or "new to
perl" and "urgent" in them. Being new to perl did not mean you
had to be new to USENET. And it didn't mean you had to ignore
the common courtesies that had been established.
At first I thought it a bit unfair to arbitrarily mark a
post (or a poster) because they had obviously never read the
etiquette rules for USENET. But the shear volume of messages
requires at least some filtering. My first attempts marked
areas I did not possess an interest. Even then, I would often
read posts from people who either disregarded netiquette or
had never read them.
After a few months I started blocking senders. I like to
share my knowledge with others, but I appreciate those who
take the time to properly ask questions. There are a lot of
people who post correctly. Why bother with the people who
can't be bothered to use good subjects, use sentence case,
capitalize "i" or spell out words like "are"? (And started
blocking anyone who top-posted.)
Here I am taking the time to reply, double check my
sources, test any code I include, and proof-read my message
and I need to continually click on the ignore button of my
spell-checker as it catches errors in the quoted text.
I tend to be more lenient here on these lists, but I
monitor three perl beginner lists and they are all dumped
into one folder. Some days are busy and I'll look at
messages with descriptive subjects first. Sometimes I
don't get to the non-descriptive subjects.
Some days I feel like starting a message board for
people who like to help on message boards. Then I could
post quotes from particularly annoying posts in the "Look
what the Idiots Posted Today" forum. :)
Charles K. Clarkson
--
Head Bottle Washer,
Clarkson Energy Homes, Inc.
Mobile Home Specialists
254 968-8328
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