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