Netiquette [was: Re: [H-GEN] altering disk partitions]

[Greg Black]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
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"alex_del at bigpond.net.au"[1] wrote:

> > You know, I'd actually be inclined to read your message and maybe even
> > answer your question if you'd interspersed your question between
> > Greg's text instead of just typing what you wanted to say above it.
> 
> I'm new at this (as you obviously can tell). I appreciate the guidance. 
> I thought that by placing the question at the beginning it would save 
> the reader from carrying on reading the remainder if they were not 
> interested in the subject.

Here's a bit more guidance to help you.

You should have left the attribution for Jason's quote in your
message in the same way that I left yours at the top of this
message.  Yes, we want to cut out the needless stuff, but we
don't want to lose track of who said what.

> > Don't quote the whole message.  Don't put your new content above the
> > old stuff---put it below or in between, like this.  Otherwise you may
> > find yourself being ignored.

Next, since you had nothing to say about the paragraph above,
you should have deleted it from your message.

And now, to be helpful in a more general way, I'm going to give
you some references that you (and others who find all this to be
something of a puzzle) should read.  When you've finished with
the references I'm going to give you, then you should also have
a crack at using Google to help you find more information on
this topic.

To learn about quoting, try Timo Salmi's FAQ on the subject:

    http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/quote.html

This is specifically about Usenet posts, but is also largely
applicable to mailing lists such as the Humbug lists.

For further interesting FAQs, try Timo's FAQ page:

    http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html

For a different (satirical and very funny) slant, try the famous
Emily Postnews article by Brad Templeton:

    http://www.templetons.com/brad/emily.html

I hope this will help you and all the other Humbug people to
write better messages to the Humbug lists.  And, although I've
mentioned it before, do not overlook AJ's item about netiquette
on the Humbug web site:

    http://www.humbug.org.au/netiquette.php

Greg

[1] One final irritation: all MUAs that I've ever seen allow
    people to specify their real name so that it will be
    included in the From header of their email -- it's a great
    discourtesy to everybody else if you don't do this.

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