[Babase] List netiquette
Karl O. Pinc
babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Tue, 19 Apr 2005 22:53:02 +0000
On 04/19/2005 04:02:17 PM, Susan Alberts wrote:
> What I've understood so far about rules is:
>
> 1. do NOT include all of the original message when you are replying
> to something, edit out the bits you are not replying to, and
> 2. nest your replies within the text that you are replying to.
> 3. Make sure your email program is set to send plain text.
On reflection I'd include 3 more rules:
4. Always have an appropriate subject line for new messages
but keep the subject line the same even when posting
an off topic response so people can recognize the context.
Because: when mutilple people are responding at the same
time to different messages an altered subject won't
make it into all various replies. I sometimes
add to the beginning of the subject and leave the old
subject line too. Like so for this thread:
(Subject: Some more nettitquete rules -- Was: Re: [Babase]
List netiquette)
I'm especially tempted to change the subject when I know that
people are done responding to the old messages and
my new message will be the only one getting responses.
5. It's usually a good idea to write one email (with
an appropriate subject line) per topic, rather than
put many unrelated topics into a single email. That
keeps discussions in their own thread and makes
it easier to follow the back and forth.
6. Don't write text lines longer than 72 characters.
Although many email clients (viewers) will wrap long
lines, others won't and there's nothing more frustrating
than having to do lots of horizontal scrolling. (You'll
especially see the problem with horizontal scrolling when
looking at the list archives.) Long lines can also make
it hard for people to intersperse their reply (rule 2).
We don't (AFIK) have a problem with these 3 new rules,
although come to think of it very early on I noticed
that I needed to do a lot of horizontal scrolling
when reading the early archives, so maybe people
are writing long lines and I'm just not noticing.
Karl <kop@meme.com>
Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
-- Robert A. Heinlein