Re: Posting Netiquette [ref: Threads "look definitely like" unreadable mess. Handbook project.]

On Wednesday, 22 June 2022 at 15:41:39 -0400, grarpamp wrote:
> Around 6/2x/22, Many <people@where.ever> rammed their horribly formed
> msgs upon others to parse:
> ...
> FreeBSD needs to add an entire section on the
> email post formatting netiquette to the Handbook,
> and link it on the List Subscription pages, and in the List Welcome
> emails, and even in quarterly automated administrivia post to all lists.

In fact we have guidelines, just not exactly where you might expect.
"How to get Best Results from the FreeBSD-questions Mailing List"
(https://docs.freebsd.org/en/articles/freebsd-questions/) contains:

  Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, reply to the sender
  and to FreeBSD-questions.

  Include relevant text from the original message. Trim it to the
  minimum, but do not overdo it. It should still be possible for
  somebody who did not read the original message to understand what
  you are talking about.

  Use some technique to identify which text came from the original
  message, and which text you add. I personally find that prepending
  “>” to the original message works best. Leaving white space after
  the “> ;” and leave empty lines between your text and the original
  text both make the result more readable.

  Put your response in the correct place (after the text to which it
  replies). It is very difficult to read a thread of responses where
  each reply comes before the text to which it replies.

  Most mailers change the subject line on a reply by prepending a text
  such as "Re: ". If your mailer does not do it automatically, you
  should do it manually.

  If the submitter did not abide by format conventions (lines too
  long, inappropriate subject line) please fix it. In the case of an
  incorrect subject line (such as "HELP!!??"), change the subject line
  to (say) "Re: Difficulties with sync PPP (was: HELP!!??)". That way
  other people trying to follow the thread will have less difficulty
  following it.

  In such cases, it is appropriate to say what you did and why you did
  it, but try not to be rude. If you find you can not answer without
  being rude, do not answer.

Arguably these recommendations should be separated out into their own
page.  Re-reading them, I see that there is no explicit line length
recommendation.  That should be included.

And yes, I agree entirely with your concerns, though without my core
hat.

Greg
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