Basil Chupin [mailto:blchupin@tpg.com.au] replied to Mike Dewhirst, saying: [...]

People who come here should already be posting-etiquette aware and if they are not then it does not mean that they are simply new SuSE users. I was once a "newbie" to this forum but I didn't come here ignorant of how to or how not to post/reply to messages in mail lists or newsgroups.

On the other hand, I was a participant for years in BBS and internet mailing lists before I came to [SLE], but it was only here that I learned about: a) top-posting (used to be called TOFU when most of the list gurus were German) b) that hitting "Reply" (to get a new message with the correct address in place) and just writing in a new topic/Subject amounted to hijacking a thread (because of the header material that was invisibly (to my mail reader) brought along. I'm sure I was an ignorant turd, but the two topics simply went unmentioned in several years and many hundreds of posts to a variety of mailing lists (some technical, some social/political/whatever). Once I read an explanation of (at the time) TOFU, and an explanation of how threads were being unintentionally hijacked, I made it a point to avoid both practices thereafter. But the idea is that this list was in the minority from my perspective... still is, mostly, but when in Rome... Also, modern mail readers make the thread-hijack thing hard to excuse, because it now takes fewer clicks or keystrokes to get a new message with the list address already in place, than to "Reply" and then delete the undesired stuff.

As far as I know, this forum is no different to any other well run, intelligent, forum where the normal posting-etiquette is known and observed by the participants.

It is observed by well-meaning participants (like me :-) when it is pointed out, but it doesn't necessarily come with a newcomer if their previous forum experience didn't involve the two specific characteristics that seem to be most important here (most talked about, anyway). Now, on a related topic, dear to my own heart... [snippety-doo-dah] This is where I snipped the entire remainder of Mike's post that you unnecessarily retained (and did not comment on), as well as the entire, un-edited and un-commented text of Dana's message, to which Mike had replied. In most of the other mailing lists in which I participate, THAT is a crime, and gets your knuckles soundly rapped. Considerate replies trim and edit the text to which they are replying, and never leave 50+ lines of untouched old message at the end. It's not friendly to people who receive individual messages, because they often scroll down through the stale stuff just to see your next comment, only to find that you have no further comment. It's extremely unfriendly to people who receive lists in digest format. I'm guilty myself, sometimes, but it's rare, and it's always an embarrassing mistake, rather than my standard don't-give-a-f*** policy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm getting dizzy up here on the soap-box. (Sorry to stomp all over you for something that many people do - including some of the list gurus - but you handed me such a juicy example. :-) Kevin The information contained in this electronic mail transmission may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected from disclosure. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your computer without copying or disclosing it.