Netiquette guidelines for FFII lists

Except for the usual rules (no HTML posts, no attachments), please observe the following for FFII's lists:

1. Consider using the wiki instead

If you want to ask a question, go ahead and ask the list. But if you want to contribute any kind of information which may be useful later, consider using the wiki instead. People are very busy, and it is likely that your contribution will be forgotten if you just post it on the list. Moreover, the lists are for notifications, questions, and discussions, and contributions are generally out of place; they constitute noise on the lists, whereas they constitute valuable material on the wiki.

2. Don't make large quotations

When replying to a message, please trim the quotation to the necessary two or three lines; make sure there is only one blank line before and after the quotation; and if you want to answer many points of the original post, consider not quoting at all and rephrasing, as in "Considering Microsoft's new patent, I doubt that, as you say, such-and-such, because so-and-so. But I agree with you on ..."

3. Take care of subject lines

Make your subject line be a good summary of your post. If you reply to a message and the subject has practically changed in the course of the discussion, change the subject line.

Please note: this is not about being pedantic - it's about people who read 100 or more emails a day, have very limited time, and will ignore messages unless it is clear from the subject line that they are of interest to them. We want the information you give or the question you make to reach the right people, this is all.

4. Don't give information that might be useful to the bad guys

This applies to the wiki as well as to the public mailing lists: spies are likely to be watching them. Our work is mostly open, but there are exceptions - so think before you post.