openSUSE:Mailing list netiquette

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This netiquette is a recommendation of how to write messages to the openSUSE mailing lists that are easy to read, reduce the amount of text and number of messages, help mutual understanding and avoid flames.
If you have been pointed to this page after posting a message the reason is, probably, that you made some common mistake that we all did, at least once, so don't feel alone and continue reading. It will help all of us openSUSE mail lists users.
It is pointless to post an email that only warns about posting style.
New openSUSE email users will feel unwanted and go away, and that is exactly what we don't want.
If you don't want to read an email, then just skip it. If you want to answer, but prefer the posting style described below, state that at the end and link to this article for explanation.

Why we need netiquette

A mailing-list consists of many members. The 'just-readers', the ones searching for help, the people who provide information and, perhaps the most common ones, people who may be put into several of these categories. Often someone knows something which the next one does not, and so on. Therefore, the mailing-list is built to be a place in the community for exchanging information and experience between its users. To have the mailing-list and, hence, the information exchange most readable and liquid, some rules have been made.

These rules are explained in the following document.



Do it yourself

First of all before you write a mail to the mail list, please try to find a solution by yourself. Support portal offers different ways listed in section Non interactive. That can be faster and you can learn something along the way.


Use a descriptive subject

The openSUSE mailing lists receive hundreds of emails every day. So, if you have a question or a problem to solve, please use a subject that summarizes your issue and also gives some details about the body of the message. Here are some good examples of subjects from real messages to openSUSE mailing lists:

Good subjects 1) Scroll horizontally by holding down Alt-key doesn't work
2) MD5s match MD5SUMS file, but not installation MD5 check
Bad subjects 1) Major problem
2) issue
3) Re: New Tumbleweed snapshot YYYYMMDD released!


Much more about good and bad subjects:


Signatures

Signatures in emails should be not longer then 4 lines long.

Information: McQuary Limit


Quoting

When you reply to a message, please quote only the relevant passages to which you are replying. Indeed, you can quote only a few words that are essential to identifying the passages to which you are replying. Everyone on a mailing list is served by one mail list server and receives all messages quickly, so you can ignore old rules written in Usenet times when answers sometimes came before questions.

  • Short about wholesale quoting. It takes time to quote properly, but you "waste" your time on many other activities that mainly serve to be accepted in a society, so why to exclude this one.
  • The quoting HOWTO gives a nice introduction to the art of mail quoting.

Use bottom-posting or interleaved style to answer

Common to both styles is that you quote relevant sentences from the previous message and give your answers under the quote. These are the styles that are commonly used on the mailing lists - first the question (quoted) and then the answer.

Bottom-posting

The bottom-posting style is used when an answer relates to a single question or statement in the previous message.

This means that you reply underneath the quoted text. It leads to a natural flow in messages that have quotes from previous posts.

Interleaved style

The interleaved style is used when you answer multiple statements from a previous message. That way, the reader first reads the question and then the answer.

Why we prefer these two styles

We are often discussing topics that include comments to:

  • the output of a command, configuration files, or program code that contains multiple lines, and multiple comments are interleaved with original text
  • groups of tests performed to troubleshoot a problem, and we need to use a style that will allow us to insert comments between quotes of the original message, with a summary or another proposal at the end of message.

The fact is, we live in different time zones, so giving one option, then waiting another day for the answer to give another proposal, would be a waste of time. The discussion would stretch over days. So, we are trying to avoid this by offering more options at once with answers that are interleaved with the original proposals.

Time and practice brought the general consensus that this is a better way to communicate on the lists. However, other lists can have different operating conditions and they can consider some other posting style as appropriate.

General rule is, if the message is the natural conclusion of a thread, and there no more replies are expected, then top posting is adequate. For instance, if you want to say "Thanks, that answered my question", it's better to post this at the top of the page, in long threads, as answer to your original post. Reading the subject and the first lines gives the info that solution is found. It is also unnecessary to quote more than a few lines, only enough to identify the solved problem/condition.

How it looks

Threading.png

Changing the subject without opening a new thread

Very often a long thread splits into several topics (for example if there are several answers to the same problem). In this case changing the subject may be necessary. One widely accepted method for this is a subject like

Re: kde icon blinks (was: is that an Xfree problem?)

Later reply posts usually remove the (was: ...) part. This allows to change a subject, but keep thread structure intact. If the discussion led to a totally different subject, you may stop, open a new thread and go on. On the other side usually others wont follow you and still discuss in old thread, so use thread splitting wisely.

Also, do not simply hit Reply to a message and change the subject to start a new discussion. When you do so you break the thread that was in progress making it hard to follow in the archives.


Don't be aggressive

This applies to new and old openSUSE mail list users.

Most of the people on the list are friendly and helpful. They use their free time to help others, so even if you are angry because you can't solve some problem, please, calm down and then post your question. It will help you to tell what is the problem without aggressive and abusive language, and it will help readers to understand what is the problem.

To answer the question one has to know a few details about the problem. Don't be upset because there is a question asking for more information. We would like to help, but not everybody has a good crystal ball to see the things that are not written in email, so we have to ask.

Understand that the audience is passionate about openSUSE, posting that you hate openSUSE, Linux, the mailing list, or other closely related things, will most likely get passionate responses, don't take things too personally.

Mail lists are used by a lot of people whose first language is not English, nor do they know computer related terms. This sometimes leads to misunderstandings in excess of the normal misunderstandings that can happen in email exchanges.

Don't be aggressive to new posters, but instead help them on their way to become a part of our community, sometimes a private email may be appropriate, to explain something, but mainly it is not wanted and if it has answer it is interesting not only for poster, but also for many that read the list archives, for instance after looking for answer on Google.

Personal attacks or threats of any kind are unacceptable on any openSUSE mail list.


Personal and mail list answers

In general, messages received from the mail list (public messages) should have their replies also go back to the list (public reply). This is so that the archive can record your message for other people wishing to search the archive at a later date. In case your reply is not related to the thread, or you want to veer off into a private conversation, remove the mailing list as a recipient.

Rule of thumb: If the user has sent the reply to you and to the list, then respond to *only* the list unless the poster *specifically* requests personal mail.

To override this choice would generally be rude. Those that set their email software to direct your reply to themselves, personally, are indicating that they want a personal reply, in addition to a copy you send to the list -- you should always send a copy to the list so that all may benefit, but those directing your response to them, personally, should have their wishes honored. This is usually handled automatically when one replies to 'All'. Those wanting individual responses often are more advanced users who keep one copy in a special list-box, while having personal responses that are directed to them given a higher priority for review. Those that don't want multiple copies should not have to do anything.

Do not use Reply-to-all, as that forces duplicate copies of a message upon them.


Off-topic content

Most of the mailing lists are specialized to a specific topic. Please do not post off-topic messages to them.

Topic is what people want to read, the reason they subscribed to the list; e.g. ordered the mailing list server to send them only email from a specific list. Topic is subset of interest in openSUSE, so anything outside of defined topic is not on-topic, even if it is openSUSE-related. Posting to the opensuse-project list about supporting some specific hardware would be off-topic, while opensuse@opensuse.org and opensuse-kernel@opensuse.org would be appropriate for hardware support discussion to start.

openSUSE lists are about the openSUSE project and distribution, so anything outside that, no matter how important it might be for Linux generally, or the world generally, is, in general, unwelcome. Unwelcome arguably includes links incorporating bugzilla.netiq.com, bugzilla.novell.com and bugzilla.suse.com. While those will usually provide the desired content, users are better served by equivalent links incorporating the project name. Bugzilla.opensuse.org presents a skin compatible with the rest of the openSUSE project that won't pause or perplex a new user finding such link via a context other than receiving the email, and won't frustrate openSUSE users with multiple links to the same destination among search results. There are rather rare occasions when a general computing question can be on-topic; e.g. secure UEFI boot as affects ability to install openSUSE on hardware with such support.


Cross posting

That is when the same message is sent to two or more mail lists at once, like when we CC two or more people in a private message.

As in any advice given in this article, there are exceptions, but they are rather rare. Majority of email lists users don't like cross posting in any case, and those that have to use it first apologize to the list subscribers when they think that cross posting is the only rational option.

Problem is that not everyone is subscribed to all the lists that are the target of cross posting, so answers often land on only one of the lists. Conversation is broken as the readers can see only messages that are posted to their list, often stumbling on answers without previous questions.

This is imposing a lot of additional work to follow conversation, like looking another list, or mail list archives, and try to locate missing messages. It is obvious that such messages are ignored whenever is possible, so if you need an answer, don't cross post.

Another problem is that some people are subscribed to multiple lists, and they don't appreciate multiplied email volume as that is either more work to follow, or just more noise in the mail box.

In openSUSE there are few lists that need subscription to post on them. That are opensuse@opensuse.org (user to user help list) and language counterparts that in general are opensuse-$LANG@opensuse.org , where $LANG is two character language code, like de for German, fr for French, and so on. So German language list will have email address opensuse-de@opensuse.org. Cross posting that includes any of them will create the broken thread problem and your posts will be most likely ignored.

Other lists are protected with spam filters and don't require subscription to post, so they can be used to cross post without the broken thread problem, but even then use it only when it is absolutely necessary. Note that:

  • Many people don't like cross posting, as before anti spam filters all lists were subscription only and cross posting was always source of problems, even when applied with consideration to readers.
  • Some people are subscribed to more then one topic (list).
  • You still have to follow rule that posts must be on topic for each list you plan to cross post.

So if you are not sure, start with question on one general help list, like opensuse@opensuse.org and then, if that is required, move message to one or more specialized lists. Don't forget to include link to previous discussion that is archived at http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/ . No one is obliged to hunt down where previous discussion has happened, so in order to get answer help those are willing to read about your problem.


Conclusion

This is how we make our lives easier while being as effective in helping others as time permits.

We don't mind occasional posts that don't lean to netiquette, specially if someone is in a hurry, new to our mail list, using a mobile device that lacks functions, but permanently breaking rules will not make you any friends.


See also

  • Mail clients is a list of a few mail programs used to read email
  • Google I/O 2008 - Open Source Projects and Poisonous People Every project runs into people who are selfish, uncooperative, and disrespectful. These people can silently poison the atmosphere of a happy developer community. Come learn how to identify these people and peacefully de-fuse them before they derail your project. Told through a series of (often amusing) real-life anecdotes and experiences by Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman (Google).