One can't be insulted unless one wants to be (and I don't).

Cheers,

Alan

-----

At 6:53 PM +0000 11/7/01, Gary McGovern wrote:
>That's quite right to mention netiquette. Insults, bad manners and flaming
>spirals don't do anyone any good except the perpetrator of psychological
>mind games.
>
>I think a public apology is due from Justin to Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls and the
>active people on the list, not for having different ideas but for the bad
>manners and insults. Nothing has been accomplished except for less
>constructive participation on the list and bad feelings.
>
>Regards,
>Gary
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Bert Freudenberg" <bert at isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de>
>To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 9:10 AM
>Subject: List etiquette (was: Re: Three Threads Of Squeak)
>
>
>>  On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, Gary Fisher wrote:
>>
>>  > The "problem" you're seeing is caused not by malicious behavior but by
>the
>>  > way many email programs handle replies in html
>>
>>  Those problems can easily be overcome by a little common sense:
>>
>>  * Don't send HTML mails to the list.
>>  * Don't include everything in a reply, just so much to retain the context.
>>
>>  If you were never given a proper introduction how to politely use this
>>  medium, it would be a great idea to study the "Mailing List Etiquette",
>>  especially the section about formatting and quoting (attached below).
>>
>>  -- Bert
>>
>>  http://www.gweep.ca/~edmonds/usenet/ml-etiquette.html
>>
>>  Are there any important formatting considerations?
>>
>>  Visual formatting is very important in a textual medium like email.  If
>>  your postings are poorly formatted, they will be hard to read, and
>>  people will tire of them quickly.  As a result, fewer people will read
>>  what you write to the end, and many will begin to skip your posts
>>  entirely.
>>
>>  Most importantly, learn to use the enter (or return) key on your
>>  keyboard.  The video display width of many network users is limited to
>>  80 columns, and text which wraps beyond that length is quite a bit more
>>  difficult to read.  Since your text may be indented when quoted by
>>  others you should keep your lines to a maximum length somewhere below
>>  that point -- around 70 characters is a good target.  There are of
>>  course exceptions, such as wide tables, and long URLs, but the rule is
>>  to keep it well under 80.
>>
>>  Be careful if you use a program which wraps your posts when you send
>>  them.  If you wrap at a wider column than it does, you may end up with
>>  alternating long and short lines where it wraps one or two words from
>>  each long line, but fails to join them to the next.  If you know that
>>  your software operates this way, you may be best off to simply write
>>  each paragraph as one long line, and let it do all the wrapping.  Be
>>  very sure that this is the case though, as postings that come through
>>  with really long, single line paragraphs are also annoying to read.
>>
>>  Wrapping at a considerably narrower margin, such as 40 characters is
>>  also more difficult to read, as one must page down much more often.
>>  However, don't be afraid to use blank lines to separate your paragraphs,
>>  and do break your text into paragraphs.  In fact, keeping paragraphs
>>  fairly short is also easier to read; around ten lines is a good upper
>>  limit.
>>
>>  Be careful when using tabs for indenting, as they will display
>>  differently on other platforms.  Also, avoid control characters and
>>  other fancy visual effects which are likely platform specific.  When
>>  composing (and reading) mail, you're best to stick with a mono-spaced
>>  font (as opposed to proportionally spaced), and avoid anything other
>>  than the most basic text you can use to get your message across.
>>
>>  When replying, should I quote the previous message?
>>
>>  Most certainly.  You should always provide some context to your replies
>>  so that people who may not have been following the thread closely, or
>>  who have other things on their minds will easily be able to determine
>  > what you're talking about.
>>
>>  However, when quoting, be very careful to edit the quoted sections down
>>  to the bare minimum of text needed to maintain the context for your
>>  reply.  There is very little on a mailing list that is more annoying
>>  than paging through a few pages of quoted text only to read a few lines
>>  at the end.  Also be careful that you clearly indicate what text you're
>>  quoting (as opposed to what you're writing), and if possible, cite the
>>  author of the original text.
>>
>>  If your mail program wants to attach the whole message you're replying
>>  to on the end of your replies, please do not let it do this if you can
>>  possibly avoid it.  It is a good thing to include excerpts from previous
>>  messages with your replies to maintain a logical flow of discussion, but
>>  it is almost always a bad thing to include the entire text of a message
>>  being replied to, be it at the start or end of your reply.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>


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