Hello folks,
A couple people are visibly not grokking some of the finer points of
proper mailing list use, mostly using 'reply' instead of 'new
message'. Thus it's time for... the FAQ. In this case FAQ =Frequently
Answered Questions. We answer 'em before you ask 'em.
They're not rules, they're just the way it works.
1) When posting to the list, don't just ignore subject lines, or reply
to messages that have nothing to do with what you're about to say.
Sophisticated mail readers (like the ones many of the core
developers use) 'thread' conversations, grouping messages by
replies. Quite a few of us have our mail readers set up to totally
ignore threads we've previously marked as uninteresting. Landing
an unrelated message in the middle of a totally different
conversation which many of the core folk have marked as
'uninteresting' will just get you ignored. We'll never see your
mail. We get hundereds of messages a day, and list mail simply has
to take a low priority through batch handling like that.
BTW, just editing the subject line is not enough to keep your
message out of a thread if you hit 'Reply'. A seperate header is
embedded in the message called 'In-Reply-To'. At a guess, the
pretty graphical mail readers don't let you edit it, or even tell
you that it's there. If you want to start a new subject or
conversation, hit 'New Message' please. Not 'Reply'.
2) Do not send subscribe/unsubscribe messages to the list; they'll be
filtered and ignored by the mail list system and no one will ever
see them. Follow the instructions listed in the footer of every
message. Eg, to unsubscribe, send a message with the single word
'unsubscribe' in the body to <listname>-request@xiph.org. If
you
have trouble, a polite request to postmaster@xiph.org will get
your request to a human.
3) The list software does not allow email in HTML format; it is
intentionally configured to drop all HTML formatted software on the
ground with no error and no warning. The primary motivation for
this is to block mailspam; this trick alone filters 99% of the
mailspam that would otherwise flood the lists.
Outlook and Exchange, by default, tend to be configured to send
everything in marked up, HTML-like format. This markup is useless
to most of us, takes up space, confuses the web archiving software
and generally does nobody any good. Oh... and it will cause your
mail to get dropped; if you're confused why your posts aren't
showing up on the list, this is probably the reason. Please turn
this formatting 'feature' off when posting to xiph.org lists.
That's all I can think of for now. Happy posting.
Monty
<p><p>--- >8 ----
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