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List: linux-arm-kernel
Subject: Mailing List Etiquette
From: Russell King - ARM Linux <linux () arm ! linux ! org ! uk>
Date: 2005-09-28 6:00:03
Message-ID: E1EKUz5-000491-ST () flint ! arm ! linux ! org ! uk
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This message is sent to this mailing list once a week.
This can also be found (with html links) at:
http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/mailinglists/etiquette.php
Lists
In order for the linux-arm lists to provide a high quality and
effective forum for finding answers to problems, the following
etiquette is highly recommended. Here is a list of the ettiquette
points:
1. Subscription requirements.
2. Sending a new message to the list.
3. Replying to a message from the list.
4. Sending a message to multiple linux-arm* lists.
5. HTML encoded messages.
6. Email attachments.
7. Commercial email.
8. Searching the archives.
9. Support for commercial products.
10. Cross-posting between linux-arm* lists and other lists.
11. Automatic replies.
12. Virus scanners and email sanitisers.
1. Subscription requirements. [rmk]
Recently, we have had to impose a restriction on the mailing
lists. You must be subscribed to the mailing list in order to
post messages to that mailing list. This is because of the UK
Data Protection laws. Only subscribe to these lists if you
accept the legal notice displayed on the relevant pages; by
subscribing, you accept the terms laid out in the legal notice.
Answers will be copied to you.
2. Sending a new message to the list. [rmk]
Please do not reply to an existing message as a short-cut to
post a message to the lists. Email is not a disjunct set of
messages, but is threaded, and mailing lists use this feature
to provide a coherent archive. Some email clients (notably
better than Microsoft based clients) also group messages into a
thread. When ever you hit the "Reply" button, it adds
information to your outgoing email that tells the rest of the
world that it is a reply to that message.
Messages which violate this etiquette point are automatically
rejected.
3. Replying to a message from the list. [erikm, dwmw2]
When you do reply to a message someone else has posted, please
use the "Group reply" or "Reply to all" button on your mailer.
Individual developers don't know everything, and by replying to
them personally, you effectively cut yourself off from all the
other people who could help you. Please ensure that you reply
to the list and the sender of the message.
See this popular news item for more information (as seen on
linux-kernel by gregkh.)
If you are including the original message in your reply, always
edit the message such that it only quotes the sections which
are relevant to your reply. Don't just quote the whole of the
message to which you're replying.
Also, please use a mail client which correctly includes
References: and/or In-Reply-To: headers in email replies. These
headers are what keeps threads together by indicating precisely
which messages you are replying to, and the absence of them
obfuscates the mailing list by making your reply appear to
start a new thread of its own rather than being correctly
associated with the message to which you replied. Some mail
clients, in particular some configurations of Microsoft
Outlook, are not standards-compliant and do not conform to the
recommendations of RFC 2822. In the case of Outlook you may be
able to work around the bug by switching to its 'Internet
Email' mode.
If you reply to a message, avoid top-posting like this:
Thank you for your reply. Wouldn't it be a better idea to frobnicate
foo?
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Alice [mailto:alice@example.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 8:47 PM
To: Bob
Cc: linux-arm-kernel
Subject: Re: What is foo supposed to do?
It's to make sure bar does not eat the gnats.
This is why top posting is so bad (as seen on linux-kernel by
gregkh):
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
All this is pretty straight forward, and can be found in RFC
1855 - Netiquette Guidelines.
4. Sending a message to multiple linux-arm* lists. [rmk]
Don't do this. If you do attempt this, the list server will
filter your message out and will with-hold it until the list
administrator does something with it, which normally ends up
bouncing it back to you. In addition, you will receive a
message about "Cross-posting".
Choose one and only one list which is most appropriate for the
subject of your message. Don't post to all the mailing lists
you can find. rmk himself has a policy where, if he sees this
happening, he will ignore both your posts.
5. HTML encoded messages. [rmk, rfs]
Sorry, we don't accept HTML encoded messages on these lists,
even if they are multi-part with a text alterative; the list
server filters them out. Please ensure that your mailer does
not send HTML encoded mail; Microsoft Outlook and Netscape Mail
send HTML encoded mail by default.
6. Email attachments. [rmk]
Please ensure that all attachments are plain text. There is a
limit of around 40KiB on the overall size of the message, so if
you want to send a large attachment, please upload it to a web
site somewhere, and post with a URL instead. The main ARM Linux
FTP site does have an incoming directory where files can be
uploaded, located at
ftp://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk/pub/armlinux/incoming/. Please
ensure that if you are going to use this directory, that you
use this one, and not /pub/incoming nor /incoming.
7. Commercial email (job offers, product advertisments, etc). [rmk]
The list server is provided for members of the Linux Community
free of charge, and the generous space and bandwidth are
provided under an agreement with the hosting company.
As such, do not send any mail which furthers your commercial
interests (job advertisements, advertisements for selling
hardware or services, etc) to these lists. Such postings are
off topic for mailing lists devoted to technical development
issues.
Providing links to where patches for particular hardware
platforms can be downloaded is acceptable though, although you
are encouraged to seek the necessary permissions to post
announcements for such to the linux-arm-announce list. In
either case, your mail may contain your standard company
signature/disclaimer, but must in no way appear to advertise
your products or services.
Failure to comply with this requirement will result in
immediate and permanent expulsion from the mailing lists of the
email address and/or IP address, without warning. Further
infringements of this requirement will result in the offenders
companies the entire IP netblock being prevented from posting
messages to the list.
This is important and must be complied with without any
exception what so ever.
(the other solution is that the mailing lists are permanently
closed down, which none of us want.)
8. Searching the archives. [rmk]
Please search the mailing list archives before posting a
technical question or a problem to the mailing lists. It is
highly possible that your question has already been asked
before, or someone else has encountered your problem and a
solution has already been aired on the lists.
9. Support for commercial products. [rmk]
These mailing lists are not a support forum for commercial
products such as debuggers and closed-source binary kernel
modules. Do not post queries about these here, but direct your
questions to the suppliers of these products.
10. Cross-posting between linux-arm* lists and other lists. [rmk]
Please do not do this. Subscribers on other lists may not be
subscribed to the linux-arm lists, so when they try to reply to
such a message, they will receive a bounce. This is deemed by
others to be rude behaviour on the part of the person who
originally cross-posted.
11. Automatic replies. [erikm, rmk, dwmw2]
We don't need to know that you're out of office. If you enable
an autoresponder, do it in such a way that it doesn't respond
to mailing list messages. Failure to do so will get you
unsubscribed from the list.
Autoresponses should never be seen on the mailing list for many
reasons.
Firstly, an automatic response should only ever be sent to the
'reverse-path' of the message which triggered the reply; the
address to which bounces are expected. It should never be sent
to the address taken from the From:, Reply-To: or other
headers. In the case of mailing list traffic, the reverse-path
is a different address which feeds directly to the list
software; messages sent there will not reach the list.
Secondly, an automatic response should always be sent with an
empty reverse-path of its own, just like a bounce. This is
essential to avoid the potential for mail loops as
autoresponders talk to each other. Failure to obey this simple
rule is dangerous and could be reported as abuse to your ISP
because it's a denial of service attack waiting to happen. The
mailing list submission address is never used in a reverse-path
of outgoing mail, and hence the list submission address is
configured not to accept bounces.
Finally, the autoresponder should never send a report in reply
to list traffic because the list messages themselves indicate
that they are bulk mail. The autoresponder should check whether
the message contains a Precedence: bulk or Precedence: list
header and refrain from replying if such is found.
Note that the good old Berkeley "vacation" program does the
right thing w.r.t. detecting mailing list messages, while
certain other programs (most notably made by a company from
Redmond, WA) fail to recognise mailing list messages.
You can get some guidance on setting up MS Outlook correctly.
12. Virus scanners and email sanitisers. [erikm, dwmw2]
There are a couple of low quality virus scanners and email
sanitisers that trigger on valid messages. In the past, we've
seen scanners wrongly triggering on gzip'ed patches and
sanitisers wrongly triggering on the use of "xxx" in the
Adaptec "aic7xxx" SCSI drivers. Those were of course obviously
correct messages and the list owners got flooded by the amount
of virus warnings. If you want to use a virus scanner, make
sure it is a good one. If you fail to do so, you risk being
unsubscribed from the mailing list.
See also the comment on automatic responses above. In the case
of virus checking, no message should be sent to the apparent
sender of the virus. It is almost unheard of nowadays for the
sender address of a virus to actually bear any relation to the
real sender, so by sending a virus 'warning' you are knowingly
spamming a third party. Again, any instance of this reaching
the mailing list may be reported as serious network abuse to
your ISP.
Any queries or questions about the etiquette should be sent to
linux+etiquette@arm.linux.org.uk.
People listed above:
* dwmw2 - David Woodhouse
* erikm - Erik Mouw
* rfs - Ralph Siemsen
* rmk - Russell King
Last modified: June 8, 2004
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FAQ: http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/mailinglists/faq.php
Etiquette: http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/mailinglists/etiquette.php
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