Mailing List Guidelines

• Do look up the archives and other common Linux help sites before posting. This way you can be clearer and specific about your questions.


• Do not Top Post. That breaks message threads.


• For a question there can be a thousand answers, so do ask your questions and state your problems.


• Note that the discussion of most problems cannot be trivial and useless for everybody. The list as a whole learns.


• Prefer plain text to HTML and RTF for messages. If you want to share a text file with the list, go ahead and post it if it's small (say, under 50 Kb); 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.


• Avoid Off Topic messages. 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 at least 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.


• Save bandwidth. When replying to posts, please snip off irrelevant parts of the original mail.


• Do not hijack threads. For new questions use a different subject line. Do not simply hit the 'Reply' button.


• Use good understandable english. U mite b 3l33t, bt there r other wayz 2 sho that.


• Do not discuss any illegal activities (cracking, 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.


• Do not 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).It is safer to avoid VCARD's altogether in general.


• Do Not TROLL on the mailing list


• If in doubt, send a message to the List Admin(s) and ask.