Keep it short
Remember that thousands of copies of your message will exist in mailboxes:
- Keep your messages as short as possible.
- Avoid including log output (select only the most relevant lines, or place the log on a website or in a pastebin instead)
- Don’t excessively quote previous messages in the thread (trim the quoted text down to the most recent/relevant messages only).
Use proper posting style
- No HTML or Rich Text: Set your mailer to send only plain text messages to avoid getting caught in our spam filters.
- Do not top post: Top posting is replying to a message on “top” of the quoted text of the previous correspondence. This is unwanted in mailing lists because it increases the size of the daily digests and is confusing and incoherent. By default, most email clients top post. Please, remove the irrelevant part of the previous communication (in case of more than a single correspondence) and use bottom, interleaved posting
- Using interleaved posting: Bottom, interleaved posting is replying to the relevant parts of the previous correspondence just below the block(s) of sentences. For a comment to another block of sentences of the same quoted text, you should move below that relevant block again. Do not reply below the whole of the quoted text. Remove any irrelevant text.
- Use links: Please provide summaries and URLs to articles wherever possible. Avoid cutting and pasting whole articles especially considering all may not be interested.
- Don’t include attached files: Upload your file to this wiki or another website and post a link to the file from your email message.
Do not hijack threads
Post new questions or new topics as new threads (new email message). Please do not reply to a random thread with a new question or start an unrelated topic of conversation in an existing thread. This creates confusion and makes it much less likely that you will get a response.
Do not cross post
Avoid posting to multiple lists simultaneously. Pick a mailing list that is most suitable for your post and just use that. CC’ing multiple lists should be avoided.
Subscribers only
Only subscribers can post to our mailing lists. If you would like to contribute to our mailing lists, we think it is only fair that you be a subscriber. Please note that if you want to participate only occasionally, you can subscribe to a list and set your email options to digest or no mail and read the web archives when you want to catch up.
Additional Resources
Mailing list guidelines by Shakthi Kannan (PDF): Great guideline summary and examples of posting styles.
