I follow a fair number of mailing lists. For some reason, I seem to
have a particularly hard time reading the Tuscany dev mailing list.
One reason for this is the volume of posts -- there is a lot of
activity. However, I also find that posts to the dev list can be
difficult to read.
With this in mind, I have a few suggestions... These are all pretty
minor, and have little to do with the actual content of dev list
postings (which I think are good). I hope these are useful...
1. Use plain text, not html. Seems like a lot of posters are using
html. Hint for GMail web interface users -- HTML is your default. To
switch to plain text, click the "Plain Text" link while composing an
email. I believe that this setting is sticky (i.e. it will last
between composing emails and between browser sessions). Use *bold* and
SHOUT and "italics" if you feel the need to enhance your message, not
their rich text equivalents...
2. Edit your responses. A lot of "Reply" messages include the entire
text of the original email. I find myself spending a lot of time just
scrolling down through a new email to get to the "new" text at the
bottom. Assume that everyone is using an email client that is
effective at following email threads. It's easy to "replay" the state
of the conversation. There's no need to include the contents of entire
discussion in every email... If you're only responding to point #5 in
an email response, make things simpler for your readers by deleting
points 1-4. Likewise, if you're only responding to point #1, delete
2-5 -- that way, I don't have to scroll down to the end of the email
looking for anything more to read... This isn't dogma and be sure and
use editorial discretion -- no need to reduce the size of a 5 line
email. Also, be sure you leave enough text so that you're not altering
someone's meaning by taking their statements out-of-context.
Those are my big hitters, one additional minor point:
3. Don't hijack threads. If you use "Reply" to create a new message
and change the "Subject" line, some email clients will still associate
this new email thread, with the previous one. It's called "thread
hijacking" and you end up with two logical threads of discussion on
one physical thread. If you want to "fork" a new discussion topic
(e.g. both "reply" *and* start a new subject), use "Reply" and copy/
paste the text into a "New Message".
--kevan
