Posting Style Conventions

From NANOG

When posting to the NANOG mailing list, keep in mind that your message will go to thousands of interested readers over the world. These include colleagues, employees and employers (current, past and prospective), students, researchers, journalists, and so on. This is a very public, professional forum. The mailing list is "officially" archived by Merit and CcTec. It is also known to be archived in Google, gatewayed to local newsgroups, cross-posted to blogs, and of course delivered to many subscribers who have no limit on what they will personally keep. Given all this, the first bit of posting style advice is to apply common sense; write not what you don't want someone to mention back to you at a later date.

Behaviors and styles to use

• In general, practice good netiquette.
• Use quoting that helps provide meaningful context to your message. See below for what is considered standard.
• Limit signature blocks to a reasonable size.
• Reply directly to a poster when requested, or when your message isn't relevant to the general NANOG readership.
• If surveying the NANOG readership and collecting private responses, respond back to the list with summary results.
• Follow the good suggestions about signatures and other items from "Dear Emily Postnews".

Behaviors and styles to avoid

• Using non-standard methods of quoting prior text; this specifically includes Top-posting. See below for what is considered standard.
• Failing to appropriately quote, provide attribution, or trim unrelated text.
• Sending in HTML or other non-ASCII attachment formats.
• Starting or participating in flame wars.
• Trolling, the practice of intentionally disrupting conversation or community.
• Content-free, "Me too"-style messages.

Good Quoting

You can best support the conversation flow of the mailing list by using reponses that quote and respond to points as follows:

     > relevant excerpt 1
     response to excerpt
     > relevant excerpt 2
     response to excerpt
     > relevant excerpt 3
     response to excerpt

More references:

• The linux-kernel mailing list FAQ provides detailed instructions for quoting prior text.
• The Jargon File includes information on email quotes and inclusion conventions.
• Richard Kettlewell's Quoting Style article is also good.