MJ Ray wrote:
Would people consider these guidelines worth adopting for the ALUG lists? If so, we'll add them to the web site.
Do we really need "rules"?
No. That's why *I* wrote "guidelines" not "rules". Please do not change my words. The idea is to add this somewhere because it costs us little effort and avoids the long boring "please don't do that"/"but no-one said I couldn't"/"but you shouldn't"/"OK, now I know, but why don't you tell people?" arguments that periodically break out.
[...]
not agree, I think Unix and Unix/Linux like alternative OS should be included, also this rule would mean GNU/Hurd would be rated off topic,
I think AIX, Solaris et al can go buy their own mailing lists, but general GNU discussion would be allowed by that. And there's always social.
[...]
*should be* yes, but if you can't do anything about it i.e. boilerplate from your employers then there is not to much we can do about it, just hope to embrace and educate.
I disagree on this. Many of those huge meaningless pseudo-legalese footers really are horrendously long and the list has enough subscribers that it's a lot of rubbish if it goes to everyone. If we can "encourage" people to get their mail systems fixed, that's a good thing.
I know a lot of these are "obvious" to you or me, but having them posted somewhere can't hurt, can it?
On Tuesday 22 Oct 2002 10:23 pm, MJ Ray wrote:
MJ Ray wrote:
Would people consider these guidelines worth adopting for the ALUG lists? If so, we'll add them to the web site.
Do we really need "rules"?
No. That's why *I* wrote "guidelines" not "rules". Please do not change my words. The idea is to add this somewhere because it costs us little effort and avoids the long boring "please don't do that"/"but no-one said I couldn't"/"but you shouldn't"/"OK, now I know, but why don't you tell people?" arguments that periodically break out.
To be fair the subject does say "draft rules" even if you did mention guidelines.
<snip>
I know a lot of these are "obvious" to you or me, but having them posted somewhere can't hurt, can it?
</snip>
These guidelines may be obvious to the more seasoned subscriber but I should imagine there are quite a few very newbie people out there. Netiquette has to be learned it is a social skill in what can be an alien environment to new users so I'm very willing to cut some slack and politely guide people in the right direction. I would hate to think that we lost even a single member because of a rebuff due to not adhering to the guidelines. So I'm in total agreement a polite set of guidelines on the website linked from the list sign up page would no bad thing.
Cheers, BJ
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 10:23:58PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
No. That's why *I* wrote "guidelines" not "rules". Please do not change my words. The idea is to add this somewhere because it costs us little effort and avoids the long boring "please don't do that"/"but no-one said I couldn't"/"but you shouldn't"/"OK, now I know, but why don't you tell people?" arguments that periodically break out.
Sorry about that but the original post you quoted used the word "rules" once you have these (or guidelines) you will get lots of people becoming the police and this will make things far worse than better (imho). Anyhow I don't see many of these boring arguments on the Alug list at the moment so there is no need to worry about them.
[...]
not agree, I think Unix and Unix/Linux like alternative OS should be included, also this rule would mean GNU/Hurd would be rated off topic,
I think AIX, Solaris et al can go buy their own mailing lists, but general GNU discussion would be allowed by that. And there's always social.
I still think covering alternative unix OS and others (plan 9 etc.) at the same time on the main list is worthwhile. Anyhow this is covered in the FAQ atm. Is it worth changing? I think we want to be able to expand our horizons to more than just GNU/Linux. Anyhow what about Mac OS X? parts of it are GNU....
[...]
*should be* yes, but if you can't do anything about it i.e. boilerplate from your employers then there is not to much we can do about it, just hope to embrace and educate.
I disagree on this. Many of those huge meaningless pseudo-legalese footers really are horrendously long and the list has enough subscribers that it's a lot of rubbish if it goes to everyone. If we can "encourage" people to get their mail systems fixed, that's a good thing.
yes encourage, but sometimes people don't have the power to get things changed =( anyhow the FAQ already says about 4 line sigs etc.
I know a lot of these are "obvious" to you or me, but having them posted somewhere can't hurt, can it?
Well yes there are guides on general netiquette, maybe we should link to one of them instead... and just leave other things as they are, we already have a nice set of guidelines, the only controversial one is the advertising policy as laid out in the FAQ.
Adam
Adam Bower abower@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
Sorry about that but the original post you quoted used the word "rules" once
OK, maybe I should have edited the subject line.
[...] Anyhow I don't see many of these boring arguments on the Alug list at the moment so there is no need to worry about them.
There has only been one that I remember. It was just an attempt to hit them back first.
[...] I think we want to be able to expand our horizons to more than just GNU/Linux. Anyhow what about Mac OS X? parts of it are GNU....
The GNU parts of it, fine. Intricate details of Carbon? Not on main.
gcc on solaris? Erm, probably OK. Sun cc on Solaris? Go ask elsewhere.
Another unix-like free OS? Fine. QNX? Hey, don't you pay them for support?
See where I'm going?
[...]
yes encourage, but sometimes people don't have the power to get things changed =( anyhow the FAQ already says about 4 line sigs etc.
Then they either have the power to use an external non-brain-damaged email system, or they don't have the power to join the list either.
My Opinions Only.
MJR
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Adam Bower -
John Woodard -
MJ Ray