I agree. I think the original post and the subject both indicate this is only a set of guidelines not a policy. I say the policy should be do what's sensible. (I should be a politician, too bad, I'm an engineer. :)
I think so far all of the posts on this were written to be helpful and not to be policing. Let's consider the matter closed? --Alex > -----Original Message----- > From: Daniel Kulp [mailto:dk...@apache.org] > Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2012 2:01 PM > To: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org > Subject: Re: E-Mail client guidelines on the mailing list > > > I'm going to weigh in with a slightly different viewpoint... > > If "policies" are going to be set, I would prefer policies that would favor > increased community involvement over strict rules. Things that would > foster additional people getting involved with the project. IMO, setting > a policy about top posting or bottom posting or anything like that pretty > much discourages involvement. > > For example, lets say we hypothetically have a "bottom post only" policy. > There are several outcomes for folks like myself that think top posting is > better: > > 1) Don't get involved at all. If it's uncomfortable to be here due to a > policy, > we just won't bother. > > 2) Follow the policy, even if it's uncomfortable. May make communication > less clear if they aren't used to doing it that way. > > 3) Ignore the policy and top post anyway. > > For scenario #3, there are then two paths: > a) Community complains and says "bottom post only" - community then > looks like a bunch of "policy police" which discourages people from joining. > > b) Community ignores it, in which case, why have the policy to begin with? > > > In anycase, if you haven't noticed, for a large response to a whole > thread/message, I really prefer top posting. Particularly, Apache vote > threads almost always end up as top posts. Easier to tally by the release > manager. > > Another reason is that I use my phone a lot to "scan" messages and it > defaults to displaying the first few lines of the messages. Thus, a top post > is > easier to scan on the phone. :-) > > That's my thoughts. :-) Honestly, at Apache, I'm not aware of any of the > communities that have "rules" about email posting other than the normal > "no HTML" (which is basically enforced by the Apache list processor anyway). > Thus, my suggestion is to drop the reply posting format from the policy > entirely. > > Dan > > > On Tuesday, May 08, 2012 09:51:01 AM Kelven Yang wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Robert Schweikert [mailto:rjsch...@suse.com] > > > Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2012 2:48 AM > > > To: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org > > > Subject: Re: E-Mail client guidelines on the mailing list > > > > > > On 05/08/2012 04:16 AM, Ram Chinta wrote: > > > >> -----Original Message----- > > > >> From: Alex Huang [mailto:alex.hu...@citrix.com] > > > >> Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2012 5:14 AM > > > >> To: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org > > > >> Subject: RE: E-Mail client guidelines on the mailing list > > > >> > > > >>>> - No top-quoting, only bottom quoting or in-line > > > >> > > > >> I agree with most of these guidelines. I can see most of them > > > >> makes > > > > > > sense for > > > > > > >> plain text reading in emails/archives and on phones. The only > > > >> one I > > > > > > have a > > > > > > >> problem with is bottom-quoting. With most email clients > > > >> supporting > > > > > > threading > > > > > > >> nowadays, it is faster for readers or followers of a thread to do > > > >> top- > > > > > > quoting. I > > > > > > >> think if you have specific items that you're answering to then > > > >> you > > > > > > should trim > > > > > > >> and do in-line. This email, for example, to me is in-line with > > > >> one > > > > > > item. If you are > > > > > > >> replying to an email as a whole, then you should simply top-quote. > > > > > > For the > > > > > > >> people who are reading archives, it's not too much trouble to > > > >> follow > > > > > > in reverse > > > > > > >> but for people who are actively participating in a conversation, > > > >> it > > > > > > saves a lot of > > > > > > >> time not to have to scroll down. > > > >> > > > >> --Alex > > > > > > > > Couldn't agree more. I would even question why plain text is so > > > > > > sacrosanct in these days where mime/html email clients are standard. > > > Archiving and searching isn't an issue either. > > > > > > Because HTML formatting messes with spaces when you sent patches to > > > the list. Also this is a devel list, thus I suspect there is a good > > > chunk of people using pine or mutt and plain text e-mails are just > > > much nicer to deal with in those clients. > > > > > > Although it appears that the top posting (which I personally hate) > > > is in favor maybe this will help: > > > > > > http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Mailing_list_netiquette#Quoting > > > > > > This is the guideline we have for all openSUSE mailing lists. > > > > > > Later, > > > Robert > > > > > > -- > > > Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU > > > SUSE-IBM Software Integration Center LINUX > > > Tech Lead > > > rjsch...@suse.com > > > rschw...@ca.ibm.com > > > 781-464-8147 > > > > After I have read through > > http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Mailing_list_netiquette#Quoting. > > > > Bottom quoting seems to be more community friendly, especially for > > people who are seeking for help from archived email threads. So my > > vote is now leaning towards the opposite :-) > > > > Kelven > -- > Daniel Kulp > dk...@apache.org - http://dankulp.com/blog Talend Community Coder - > http://coders.talend.com
