[Catalyst] The Netiquette thread (OT)

[J. Shirley]

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Ian Wells <ijw at cack.org.uk> wrote:

> People:
>
> Top posting is bad.
>
> Bottom posting is bad.
>
> When quoting a previous message:
>
> - Remove as much of the original message as you can.  (And if the
> message you send still has the mailing list footer quoted within it,
> you're clearly not trying.)
> - Put replies to points in the message *underneath* the element of the
> original message that they relate to.
>
> These are the basics of old-fashioned usenet netiquette, of which
> there are more comprehensive guides elsewhere.  But if you take in
> these two points, all our current problems will end.
>
> This mailing list is for helping people.
>
> If you want to be helped, you'll get more sympathy from the people
> with the knowledge you need if you follow these guidelines.
>
> If you are offering help, I assume you want to aid the community, and
> driving people away from the mailing list with petty annoyances is not
> going to achieve that.
>
>

Addendum: Don't drive away prolific responders by responding to single lines
uttered as an aside, because you have your own gripes.

I wrote a long rant, but I just deleted it since I don't think it holds much
value.

In summary, I find it discouraging as someone who prolifically responds to
posts to have threads hijacked and have people go all silly because of
single lines I post.

"Other people" are the reason why a lot of people get burned out of Open
Source projects, and Perl in particular I believe.  Just keep that in mind
when you decide to criticize someone.  You don't know if your seemingly
harmless response is what can cause them to just throw their hands up, and
leave the thankless world behind.

(I'm not saying I'm leaving the list, I'm talking about it from an
observational point of view after having witnessed a number of very helpful
people "quit".)
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