[mythtv-users] Mind your P's & Q's!

VCRAddict MythTV_01 at appropriate-tech.net
Wed Nov 19 07:54:24 UTC 2008


Folks --

I didn't think I'd have to be the one to do this; but I have apparently
been unsuccessful in persuading the list owner/moderator to post this
reminder -- and there is absolutely no question but that it is *sorely*
needed.

Please refer to <http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Mailing_List_etiquette>.

Note the very FIRST rule of Mailing List Etiquette shown there:

                    Post in plain text

Seems simple enough, doesn't it?  And it is indeed The First Rule of
Mailing List Etiquette, in more than just a tabular sense.

Yet on this particular list, it is being rampantly ignored.  For example:
Since subscribing to this list approximately 3-1/2 days ago, our mail
server has auto-rejected well over 100 HTML-laden messages from this list.
This is out of a total of well under 500 message delivery attempts -- a
truly dismal ratio.

Worse yet, in most cases these same users who are too careless or
uninformed to properly format their posts *also* tend to regularly commit
the other two cardinal sins of mailing-list usage:  Namely, top-posting and
failing to trim extraneous quoted material.  As a result, the readability
of their messages -- as well as those of folks attempting to reply to them,
and hence the list as a whole -- suffers greatly, to the point of making it
a near-nightmare to attempt following some discussions.

Plain text, bottom- or in-line-posting, and responsible culling of quoted
material have been THE standard practice of mailing list participation for
as long as there have been mailing lists.  There are many and good reasons
for this, some of which are enumerated at the above-cited URL.  If any of
this comes as news to you, then it's past time for you to educate yourself.

Virtually every popular mail client can easily be set to send only plain
text, either by default or to a particular address or set of addresses.
Consult the documentation for your mail client for the proper settings to
ensure that your outgoing messages are in PLAIN TEXT format ONLY.  Also, in
addition to the information linked-to from the above-noted page, you can
find step-by step instructions for a wide variety of popular mail clients
(as well as further background information, if you're of a mind to better
understand the "why" of this standard) at: 

    <http://www.expita.com/nomime.html>, and/or 
    <http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/discussions/help/nomime.html>, and/or 
    <http://www.beautytech.com/articles/plaintext.htm>, and/or 
    <http://www.geoapps.com/nomime.shtml>

among many other online resources.

The MythTV Users Mailing List is a valuable resource for those of us
interested in this wonderful piece of software.  Please let's NOT destroy
that value by allowing it to become an unmanageable mess.  Thank you.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program...




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