First off: please don't take this as direct criticism of anyone in
particular - or criticism at all; it's meant to be helpful, nothing
more. And I'm not qualified to make pronouncements so feel free to
disagree or correct me. THIS IS NOT INTENDED AS A LECTURE! I've got the
impression (maybe wrongly) that people want this information. I am very
wary of scaring people off; this list needs more people, not less
(fewer?). I'd rather people ignored all this and posted as before than
stopped posting.
Mailing lists: How they work.
Most of this is probably obvious, but its worth knowing. The mailing
list server runs software which generally speaking is about the least
user-friendly software going, but its job is to maintain subscriber
lists for something like this mailing list. There are multiple lists:
the list of addresses who receive the emails, the list of addresses that
can send to the list but don't receive, the list of addresses barred
from joining the list, etc. Note I say "addresses", not "poeple". Very
often one person will have several addresses, so they may be allowed to
post to the list from any of them but only receive messages back to one
email address to avoid getting duplicates. Usually you can get on or off
these various lists by emailing the right address with the right
instructions (which are processed automatically); for a small list like
this you can probably rely on asking the list admin for help.
This mailing list gets about 20 emails for every one that you see here;
ie a lot of spam comes this way. The software only passes email on from
those on the list which is why you don't see it; as list admin I get to
scan the spam every so often and release any emails which weren't spam
(eg someone posted to the list without subscribing first, or from a
different address, but the content is clearly Linux related so I let it
through, and generally add that address to the list of allowed senders
for future use). Mail which goes through is "blind carbon copied"
(BCC'd) to everyone on the list (so you can't see the list of
recipients), with [Peterboro] added to the subject line if its not
already there, so that its easy to sort when you receive it.
Even with the sorting ability some people don't like getting lots of
emails, so there is the option when you subscribe to choose the digest
option, where all mail is stored up and sent out periodically as one
long email. When this happens the Subject is obviously set accordingly.
Mailing lists: How to use them.
The first thing to remember is that people come and go from the list, so
if you reply to a message "when's the next meeting" with "next Tuesday
at 8pm", but do not include the original question, then someone who
joins between the two will get nothing useful from the second post, as
it has lost its context. That's (one reason) why quoting is useful, and
to be encouraged. Other reasons include the fact that in replies to
longer messages its hard to work out which part you are replying to
without including the context. As a minimum, when quoting, you should
include enough that a reader of your email can see (a) who you are
replying to, and (b) what they said that you're commenting on. In high
traffic lists stuff like dates and times are helpful too.
The second thing to remember is that people who don't have much time on
their hands will likely scan the list of subjects and read only those
they are interested in. Therefore helpful subjects are essential, as is
changing the subject when the subject changes (if you see what I mean).
Including comments about the date/venue of the next meeting in an email
with the subject "Re: how do I get my video card working" is likely to
mean many people won't see it. (Subjects are also very useful for
searching email archives.) Assuming you changed the subject but included
a quote to give context from an email with a different subject, it's
nice to not just replace the subject but leave the old one there too for
reference (eg "Next meeting, was Re: how do I get my video card
working"). That way, if someone reads your email and wants to look back
to the email you're refering to, its easier to find.
The third thing to remember is that all this stuff gets archived, and
even before that gets sent to lots of people and therefore sits on lots
of mailservers waiting to be read. "Quoting" parts of a conversation
which are not relevant to your reply just adds to the volume of wasted
data taking up space, generally slowing everything down. It is also
harder to read: you need to scan through the whole quoted material to
check whether there was something added in there which is relevant (or,
more likely, you just skip to the next email and anything which was
added gets ignored). This becomes especially relevant with digests; a
digest will often contain many many copies of the same thing because its
been quoted over and over again, and they all get rolled up into the
same digest. Quoting a digest puts the last digest into the next one
(often multiple times if people reply) and if continued it doesn't take
long for digests to get *very* big, despite having very little useful
new content in them.
Fourth: Most people read email as they do books; top to bottom. Since
we've established that the only quoted material is just what's needed to
give context, it makes sense to put that above the reply:
Joe Bloggs said:
> Something silly
Something clever
This is particularly true when there are several parts to the reply:
Joe Bloggs said:
> Something silly
Something clever
> Something sensible
But I agree with that
This makes much more sense than:
Something clever
But I agree with that
Joe Bloggs said:
> Something silly
>
> Something sensible
Fifth: Attribution matters. If I say something, and Joe Bloggs replies
(quoting my words attributed to me), and you reply to Joe, quoting the
bit I said but giving the impression that Joe said it, then Joe might
get upset (as might I). Similarly you should be careful about editing
someone-else's words that you're quoting - but its generally OK to
reformat it if necessary. If it makes sense to paraphrase what someone
said rather than quote it directly, then do so:
Joe Bloggs said
> [SNIP: lots of really useful information]
Thank's Joe, that has really made things clear!
Much better that then quoting several pages of something useful just to
say "thanks" at the bottom. In fact this kind of thing often puts the
most useful people off posting something in depth, because they don't
want to get lots of copies back with "thanks" at the end either!
Sixth: Use the language! Stuff like punctuation, NOT USING UPPER CASE
FOR EVERYTHING ("shouting"), whitespace (eg blank lines between what
you're quoting and what you're saying), trying to avoid spilling
mistooks, avoiding UMA's (Uncommon or Meaningless Abbreviations) etc
just make it easier for people to read what you're writing. If you don't
want people to read it, then save yourself the trouble of typing it out
to start with! Don't assume that everyone knows what (eg) a TLA is
("Three Letter Acronym"), as there are a wide range of people reading
this - far more than you might realise (the ratio of subscribers to
people we see posting is I'd guess about 40:1). But don't get hung up on
it either - particularly if you have a good excuse (English not your
first language, dyslexia, blind/partially sighted, etc). To worry about
split infinitives or other silly language nonsense is the remit of other
mailing lists, not this one. But again: if people can't easily read what
you're saying then they won't, and you've just wasted your time typing it.
Seventh: Stay (as far as possible) "on topic". There may be some skilled
Windows users here, but there's a lot of people reading this list who do
not wish to wade through lots of misplaced Windows questions. It's also
not in your interests: many a time I've seen someone given wrong or
misleading advice in an attempt by someone to be helpful, where had they
asked in the right place they'd have got better advice and wrong advice
would have been quickly corrected by others. Mailing lists are great
when they're focussed; that means that the right people keep reading
them and you have a good chance of getting good advice from them. A big
"signature" (anything you automatically tag on to the end of every
email) is very likely not "on topic" and should be removed if possible,
although a small signature is useful to give your emails some
"personality" which makes it easier for people to recognise each other.
(There is almost never a good reason to quote the signature in a reply,
though.)
Eighth: Not everyone uses your email client, so fancy fonts etc likely
look a complete mess to other people. In fact there is a general rule
that you should only ever send text to a mailing list (no
attachments/images, no fancy fonts/colours/etc). There are conventions
for *highlighting* certain words (or _underlining_ them), and for
expressing emotion :-) If you make a comment to someone intended to be
light-hearted but which could be taken a different way, remember that
they can't see your smile unless you show them, but also remember that
putting :-) at the end of an insult isn't enough to avoid you making
enemies! It's also worth knowing that other people might well have
better email clients than you; for example many are capable of
"threading" conversations based on special headers within email which
keep track of which email references which other one. This means that if
you start a new email by "replying" to an old one, but deleting all the
content and starting "afresh", then you have probably unknowingly left
that reference in place, so your email will get lost in the depths of an
old (and unrelated) thread for some of the potential readers. If you
want to start a new thread, its best to start with a new email, not a
reply. On the flip side, if you want to reply, please hit "reply" rather
than starting a new email, for the same reasons.
Mailing lists: How they differ from "normal" email.
In many ways they don't; good subject lines, sensible quoting etc are
all good ideas for email generally. Quoting is worth a special mention,
however; if you're dealing with a "department" the including complete
correspondence with each email makes sense, as Support Technician 2 may
have no idea what was said between you and Support Technician 1 last
week. This is the only place I personally feel that the default
behaviour of many email clients makes any sense - putting your reply at
the top and leaving all the past correspondence tacked on below (this is
called "top posting"). Even then I tend to trim stuff out (eg the
massive multi-line footers and legal disclaimers which just get in the
way of someone helping me).
--
Mark Rogers
More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555
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