| xf.li | 6c8fc1e | 2023-08-12 00:11:09 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | _   _ ____  _ | 
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|  | 4 | | (__| |_| |  _ <| |___ | 
|  | 5 | \___|\___/|_| \_\_____| | 
|  | 6 |  | 
|  | 7 | MAIL ETIQUETTE | 
|  | 8 |  | 
|  | 9 | 1. About the lists | 
|  | 10 | 1.1 Mailing Lists | 
|  | 11 | 1.2 Netiquette | 
|  | 12 | 1.3 Do Not Mail a Single Individual | 
|  | 13 | 1.4 Subscription Required | 
|  | 14 | 1.5 Moderation of new posters | 
|  | 15 | 1.6 Handling trolls and spam | 
|  | 16 | 1.7 How to unsubscribe | 
|  | 17 | 1.8 I posted, now what? | 
|  | 18 | 1.9 Your emails are public | 
|  | 19 |  | 
|  | 20 | 2. Sending mail | 
|  | 21 | 2.1 Reply or New Mail | 
|  | 22 | 2.2 Reply to the List | 
|  | 23 | 2.3 Use a Sensible Subject | 
|  | 24 | 2.4 Do Not Top-Post | 
|  | 25 | 2.5 HTML is not for mails | 
|  | 26 | 2.6 Quoting | 
|  | 27 | 2.7 Digest | 
|  | 28 | 2.8 Please Tell Us How You Solved The Problem | 
|  | 29 |  | 
|  | 30 | ============================================================================== | 
|  | 31 |  | 
|  | 32 | 1. About the lists | 
|  | 33 |  | 
|  | 34 | 1.1 Mailing Lists | 
|  | 35 |  | 
|  | 36 | The mailing lists we have are all listed and described at | 
|  | 37 | https://curl.se/mail/ | 
|  | 38 |  | 
|  | 39 | Each mailing list is targeted to a specific set of users and subjects, | 
|  | 40 | please use the one or the ones that suit you the most. | 
|  | 41 |  | 
|  | 42 | Each mailing list has hundreds up to thousands of readers, meaning that each | 
|  | 43 | mail sent will be received and read by a large number of people. People | 
|  | 44 | from various cultures, regions, religions and continents. | 
|  | 45 |  | 
|  | 46 | 1.2 Netiquette | 
|  | 47 |  | 
|  | 48 | Netiquette is a common term for how to behave on the Internet. Of course, in | 
|  | 49 | each particular group and subculture there will be differences in what is | 
|  | 50 | acceptable and what is considered good manners. | 
|  | 51 |  | 
|  | 52 | This document outlines what we in the curl project consider to be good | 
|  | 53 | etiquette, and primarily this focus on how to behave on and how to use our | 
|  | 54 | mailing lists. | 
|  | 55 |  | 
|  | 56 | 1.3 Do Not Mail a Single Individual | 
|  | 57 |  | 
|  | 58 | Many people send one question to one person. One person gets many mails, and | 
|  | 59 | there is only one person who can give you a reply. The question may be | 
|  | 60 | something that other people would also like to ask. These other people have | 
|  | 61 | no way to read the reply, but to ask the one person the question. The one | 
|  | 62 | person consequently gets overloaded with mail. | 
|  | 63 |  | 
|  | 64 | If you really want to contact an individual and perhaps pay for his or her | 
|  | 65 | services, by all means go ahead, but if it's just another curl question, | 
|  | 66 | take it to a suitable list instead. | 
|  | 67 |  | 
|  | 68 | 1.4 Subscription Required | 
|  | 69 |  | 
|  | 70 | All curl mailing lists require that you are subscribed to allow a mail to go | 
|  | 71 | through to all the subscribers. | 
|  | 72 |  | 
|  | 73 | If you post without being subscribed (or from a different mail address than | 
|  | 74 | the one you are subscribed with), your mail will simply be silently | 
|  | 75 | discarded. You have to subscribe first, then post. | 
|  | 76 |  | 
|  | 77 | The reason for this unfortunate and strict subscription policy is of course | 
|  | 78 | to stop spam from pestering the lists. | 
|  | 79 |  | 
|  | 80 | 1.5 Moderation of new posters | 
|  | 81 |  | 
|  | 82 | Several of the curl mailing lists automatically make all posts from new | 
|  | 83 | subscribers be moderated. This means that after you have subscribed and | 
|  | 84 | sent your first mail to a list, that mail will not be let through to the | 
|  | 85 | list until a mailing list administrator has verified that it is OK and | 
|  | 86 | permits it to get posted. | 
|  | 87 |  | 
|  | 88 | Once a first post has been made that proves the sender is actually talking | 
|  | 89 | about curl-related subjects, the moderation "flag" will be switched off and | 
|  | 90 | future posts will go through without being moderated. | 
|  | 91 |  | 
|  | 92 | The reason for this moderation policy is that we do suffer from spammers who | 
|  | 93 | actually subscribe and send spam to our lists. | 
|  | 94 |  | 
|  | 95 | 1.6 Handling trolls and spam | 
|  | 96 |  | 
|  | 97 | Despite our good intentions and hard work to keep spam off the lists and to | 
|  | 98 | maintain a friendly and positive atmosphere, there will be times when spam | 
|  | 99 | and or trolls get through. | 
|  | 100 |  | 
|  | 101 | Troll - "someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages | 
|  | 102 | in an online community" | 
|  | 103 |  | 
|  | 104 | Spam - "use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk | 
|  | 105 | messages" | 
|  | 106 |  | 
|  | 107 | No matter what, we NEVER EVER respond to trolls or spammers on the list. If | 
|  | 108 | you believe the list admin should do something in particular, contact them | 
|  | 109 | off-list. The subject will be taken care of as much as possible to prevent | 
|  | 110 | repeated offenses, but responding on the list to such messages never leads to | 
|  | 111 | anything good and only puts the light even more on the offender: which was | 
|  | 112 | the entire purpose of it getting sent to the list in the first place. | 
|  | 113 |  | 
|  | 114 | Do not feed the trolls. | 
|  | 115 |  | 
|  | 116 | 1.7 How to unsubscribe | 
|  | 117 |  | 
|  | 118 | You can unsubscribe the same way you subscribed in the first place. You go | 
|  | 119 | to the page for the particular mailing list you are subscribed to and you enter | 
|  | 120 | your email address and password and press the unsubscribe button. | 
|  | 121 |  | 
|  | 122 | Also, the instructions to unsubscribe are included in the headers of every | 
|  | 123 | mail that is sent out to all curl related mailing lists and there's a footer | 
|  | 124 | in each mail that links to the "admin" page on which you can unsubscribe and | 
|  | 125 | change other options. | 
|  | 126 |  | 
|  | 127 | You NEVER EVER email the mailing list requesting someone else to take you off | 
|  | 128 | the list. | 
|  | 129 |  | 
|  | 130 | 1.8 I posted, now what? | 
|  | 131 |  | 
|  | 132 | If you are not subscribed with the same email address that you used to send | 
|  | 133 | the email, your post will just be silently discarded. | 
|  | 134 |  | 
|  | 135 | If you posted for the first time to the mailing list, you first need to wait | 
|  | 136 | for an administrator to allow your email to go through (moderated). This | 
|  | 137 | normally happens quickly but in case we are asleep, you may have to wait a | 
|  | 138 | few hours. | 
|  | 139 |  | 
|  | 140 | Once your email goes through it is sent out to several hundred or even | 
|  | 141 | thousands of recipients. Your email may cover an area that not that many | 
|  | 142 | people know about or are interested in. Or possibly the person who knows | 
|  | 143 | about it is on vacation or under a heavy work load right now. You may have | 
|  | 144 | to wait for a response and you should not expect to get a response at all. | 
|  | 145 | Ideally, you get an answer within a couple of days. | 
|  | 146 |  | 
|  | 147 | You do yourself and all of us a service when you include as many details as | 
|  | 148 | possible already in your first email. Mention your operating system and | 
|  | 149 | environment. Tell us which curl version you are using and tell us what you | 
|  | 150 | did, what happened and what you expected would happen. Preferably, show us | 
|  | 151 | what you did with details enough to allow others to help point out the | 
|  | 152 | problem or repeat the steps in their locations. | 
|  | 153 |  | 
|  | 154 | Failing to include details will only delay responses and make people respond | 
|  | 155 | and ask for more details and you will have to send a follow-up email that | 
|  | 156 | includes them. | 
|  | 157 |  | 
|  | 158 | Expect the responses to primarily help YOU debug the issue, or ask YOU | 
|  | 159 | questions that can lead you or others towards a solution or explanation to | 
|  | 160 | whatever you experience. | 
|  | 161 |  | 
|  | 162 | If you are a repeat offender to the guidelines outlined in this document, | 
|  | 163 | chances are that people will ignore you at will and your chances to get | 
|  | 164 | responses in the future will greatly diminish. | 
|  | 165 |  | 
|  | 166 | 1.9 Your emails are public | 
|  | 167 |  | 
|  | 168 | Your email, its contents and all its headers and the details in those | 
|  | 169 | headers will be received by every subscriber of the mailing list that you | 
|  | 170 | send your email to. | 
|  | 171 |  | 
|  | 172 | Your email as sent to a curl mailing list will end up in mail archives, on | 
|  | 173 | the curl website and elsewhere, for others to see and read. Today and in | 
|  | 174 | the future. In addition to the archives, the mail is sent out to thousands | 
|  | 175 | of individuals. There is no way to undo a sent email. | 
|  | 176 |  | 
|  | 177 | When sending emails to a curl mailing list, do not include sensitive | 
|  | 178 | information such as user names and passwords; use fake ones, temporary ones | 
|  | 179 | or just remove them completely from the mail. Note that this includes base64 | 
|  | 180 | encoded HTTP Basic auth headers. | 
|  | 181 |  | 
|  | 182 | This public nature of the curl mailing lists makes automatically inserted mail | 
|  | 183 | footers about mails being "private" or "only meant for the recipient" or | 
|  | 184 | similar even more silly than usual. Because they are absolutely not private | 
|  | 185 | when sent to a public mailing list. | 
|  | 186 |  | 
|  | 187 |  | 
|  | 188 | 2. Sending mail | 
|  | 189 |  | 
|  | 190 | 2.1 Reply or New Mail | 
|  | 191 |  | 
|  | 192 | Please do not reply to an existing message as a short-cut to post a message | 
|  | 193 | to the lists. | 
|  | 194 |  | 
|  | 195 | Many mail programs and web archivers use information within mails to keep | 
|  | 196 | them together as "threads", as collections of posts that discuss a certain | 
|  | 197 | subject. If you do not intend to reply on the same or similar subject, do not | 
|  | 198 | just hit reply on an existing mail and change the subject, create a new mail. | 
|  | 199 |  | 
|  | 200 | 2.2 Reply to the List | 
|  | 201 |  | 
|  | 202 | When replying to a message from the list, make sure that you do "group | 
|  | 203 | reply" or "reply to all", and not just reply to the author of the single | 
|  | 204 | mail you reply to. | 
|  | 205 |  | 
|  | 206 | We are actively discouraging replying back to the single person by setting | 
|  | 207 | the Reply-To: field in outgoing mails back to the mailing list address, | 
|  | 208 | making it harder for people to mail the author directly, if only by mistake. | 
|  | 209 |  | 
|  | 210 | 2.3 Use a Sensible Subject | 
|  | 211 |  | 
|  | 212 | Please use a subject of the mail that makes sense and that is related to the | 
|  | 213 | contents of your mail. It makes it a lot easier to find your mail afterwards | 
|  | 214 | and it makes it easier to track mail threads and topics. | 
|  | 215 |  | 
|  | 216 | 2.4 Do Not Top-Post | 
|  | 217 |  | 
|  | 218 | If you reply to a message, do not use top-posting. Top-posting is when you | 
|  | 219 | write the new text at the top of a mail and you insert the previous quoted | 
|  | 220 | mail conversation below. It forces users to read the mail in a backwards | 
|  | 221 | order to properly understand it. | 
|  | 222 |  | 
|  | 223 | This is why top posting is so bad (in top posting order): | 
|  | 224 |  | 
|  | 225 | A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. | 
|  | 226 | Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? | 
|  | 227 | A: Top-posting. | 
|  | 228 | Q: What is the most annoying thing in email? | 
|  | 229 |  | 
|  | 230 | Apart from the screwed up read order (especially when mixed together in a | 
|  | 231 | thread when someone responds using the mandated bottom-posting style), it | 
|  | 232 | also makes it impossible to quote only parts of the original mail. | 
|  | 233 |  | 
|  | 234 | When you reply to a mail. You let the mail client insert the previous mail | 
|  | 235 | quoted. Then you put the cursor on the first line of the mail and you move | 
|  | 236 | down through the mail, deleting all parts of the quotes that do not add | 
|  | 237 | context for your comments. When you want to add a comment you do so, inline, | 
|  | 238 | right after the quotes that relate to your comment. Then you continue | 
|  | 239 | downwards again. | 
|  | 240 |  | 
|  | 241 | When most of the quotes have been removed and you have added your own words, | 
|  | 242 | you are done. | 
|  | 243 |  | 
|  | 244 | 2.5 HTML is not for mails | 
|  | 245 |  | 
|  | 246 | Please switch off those HTML encoded messages. You can mail all those funny | 
|  | 247 | mails to your friends. We speak plain text mails. | 
|  | 248 |  | 
|  | 249 | 2.6 Quoting | 
|  | 250 |  | 
|  | 251 | Quote as little as possible. Just enough to provide the context you cannot | 
|  | 252 | leave out. A lengthy description can be found here: | 
|  | 253 |  | 
|  | 254 | https://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html | 
|  | 255 |  | 
|  | 256 | 2.7 Digest | 
|  | 257 |  | 
|  | 258 | We allow subscribers to subscribe to the "digest" version of the mailing | 
|  | 259 | lists. A digest is a collection of mails lumped together in one single mail. | 
|  | 260 |  | 
|  | 261 | Should you decide to reply to a mail sent out as a digest, there are two | 
|  | 262 | things you MUST consider if you really really cannot subscribe normally | 
|  | 263 | instead: | 
|  | 264 |  | 
|  | 265 | Cut off all mails and chatter that is not related to the mail you want to | 
|  | 266 | reply to. | 
|  | 267 |  | 
|  | 268 | Change the subject name to something sensible and related to the subject, | 
|  | 269 | preferably even the actual subject of the single mail you wanted to reply to | 
|  | 270 |  | 
|  | 271 | 2.8 Please Tell Us How You Solved The Problem | 
|  | 272 |  | 
|  | 273 | Many people mail questions to the list, people spend some of their time and | 
|  | 274 | make an effort in providing good answers to these questions. | 
|  | 275 |  | 
|  | 276 | If you are the one who asks, please consider responding once more in case | 
|  | 277 | one of the hints was what solved your problems. The guys who write answers | 
|  | 278 | feel good to know that they provided a good answer and that you fixed the | 
|  | 279 | problem. Far too often, the person who asked the question is never heard from | 
|  | 280 | again, and we never get to know if they are gone because the problem was | 
|  | 281 | solved or perhaps because the problem was unsolvable. | 
|  | 282 |  | 
|  | 283 | Getting the solution posted also helps other users that experience the same | 
|  | 284 | problem(s). They get to see (possibly in the web archives) that the | 
|  | 285 | suggested fixes actually have helped at least one person. |