These guidelines apply to most of the Linux-India, and some of the
local ILUG mailing lists. Please follow them: repeated offences
may result in the revocation of your posting privileges.
Look up the ARCHIVES . Most of your questions have already
been answered.
Use plain text for messages. HTML messages are not
acceptable. If you want to share a text file with the list, go
ahead and post it if it's small (say, under 10Kb); if it's any
larger, please put it up for HTTP/FTP download somewhere and
send the URL to the list. Do NOT post binary attachments to
the list under any circumstances.
Don't post Offtopic messages. NO, we dont want to know if a
really cool MP3 site with whole GNR collections is out there,
or if the taste of Coke's changed again! Try being as close to
Linux, GNU, Free Software and/or Open Source as you can be,
and if the itch is irresistible, let it atleast have to do
something with computers.
Be polite. Don't get personal. Don't use unacceptable
language. Respect other people's freedom of choice of
distributions/editors/e-mail clients/licenses. No one minds a
little sense of humour though.
Commercial posts, job offerings etc. for anything having to
do anything with Linux are acceptable. Please prefix
[Commercial] in the subject line.
Some lists (e.g. the Linux-India lists) have a special list
(linux-india-submit) dedicated for posting commercial information. Please make commercial submissions to the dedicated list; this will automatically cause your message to be sent to the primary lists if it is of relevance; it will also cause your offering to be displayed on the site web page if the webmaster determines that it is appropriate.
Save bandwidth. When replying to posts, please snip off
irrelevant parts of the original mail.
Use good understandable english. U mite b 3l33t, bt there r
other wayz 2 sho that.
Do not discuss any illegal activities (cracking/hacking,
sharing cracks/serial numbers for commercial software, copying
commercial software, passwords of accounts you are not
supposed to have access to, etc) on the list. Doing so may
result in your being banned from the list.
Do not denigrate or display bigotry towards any particular
community, group or country on the list. Do not pass sexist
remarks or make sexist jokes.
Do not append lengthy quasi-legal privacy messages to your
posts -- these add no value to the message, and are quite
meaningless in the context of a mailing list which is going to
be archived and spidered by search engines anyway.
If you use your office account to read the list mail and your
office e-mail server automatically appends such messages to
all mails passing through it, please get another e-mail
address and use that to post to the list from.
Don't send personal mail on the list. If you like a
member's web site, do let her know, but not on the list --
send a message to her personal e-mail address.
If you're responding to a job posting, make sure you don't
respond to the list -- it's bad etiquette and worse, your boss
may be reading!
Avoid attaching your VCARD to each and every message you
post to the list. Once may be fine; if you do it for each
message it creates work for the list admin(s), who may then
get mad :-) Note: Some admins may even get mad the first time,
so it's safer to avoid VCARD's altogether in general.
List Admins typically put their Admin hat on infrequently,
but when they do, please listen. If an Admin decides
something, it's final. Fini. The End. Tan-tan-taaraa. If
you don't like it, start another list of your own, start an
underground (or public) movement to get the admin overthrown,
or hire a couple of goons to visit him/her at 4am and give
him/her a few broken ones. Just do not dispute the decision
on the list: it'll probably end up getting you banned for a
nice long time.
If in doubt, send a message to the List Admin(s) and
ask. Don't mail them each time you can't decide whether blue
socks go well with green trousers or not. However if you've
thought the question over, searched the 'net and the list
archives and still can't find an answer to your list-related
question, do send the Admin(s) a message.
Here are some resources on the Internet related to mailing
lists which make interesting reading:
Netiquette
Guidelines: Minimum set of guidelines for Network
Etiquette (Netiquette).
The
SPAM-L Mailing List FAQ: A comprehensive set of
Frequently Asked (and Answered) Questions from the SPAM-L
mailing list. Contains a lot of general information and a
fair amount of demystification of mail and mailing list
terminology.
The Encourage
Women in Linux HOWTO describes simple steps that you, as
a male, can take to ensure that women are more comfortable
and participative on the list and in LUG meetings. Do read
it.
Changes
2005-08-24
Add sexism to list of deprecated interactions.
Add point about personal messages on the list.
Add link to HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux to suggested
reading.