From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-05-24T01:42:52+09:00
Subject: Re: Posting guidelines (was Re: can I do windows shell scripting in ruby?)

On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 12:36:44AM +0900, Helge A. Gudmundsen wrote:
> >> By the way, where can I find posting rules for this newsgroup?
> 
> >there are no rules here but if you break one they are spamming your
> >threads, just take a look at Ari Brown's post...
> 
> Posting guidelines can be found here:
> http://hypermetrics.com/rubyhacker/clrFAQ.html#tag22

On that subject -- I notice that the ruby-talk posting guidelines refer
to USENET etiquette, but don't cover all the major USENET etiquette
rules.  That being the case, it seems to me that it might make sense to
either change the ruby-talk guidelines so they incorporate the rest of
the common USENET etiquette guidelines or eliminate the reference to
USENET etiquette (or "netiquette", if you prefer).

In fact, I suspect this reference to USENET etiquette with a lack of
duplication of all relevant rules of USENET etiquette in the guidelines
is the source of the issue with signature length.  According to USENET
tradition, sig blocks should not be more than four lines at eighty
columns of signature, as anything longer runs a significant risk of
being longer than the main text of a post and dominating the email while
anything more than eighty columns runs the risk of running off the right
side of someone's screen (or wrapping strangely so that text is made
"funny-looking" and more difficult to read quickly).

As far as I've been able to determine over the last decade or so, the
best sources of netiquette (which is, regardless of actual transmission
method, usually just a derivative of USENET common decency traditions)
include:

  RFC 1855:
    http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855

  USENET and Mailing List posting netiquette
    http://linux.sgms-centre.com/misc/netiquette.php

  Best Online Quoting Practices
    http://wiki.ursine.ca/Best_Online_Quoting_Practices

  Zen and the Art of the Internet: ``Usenet Netiquette''
    http://www.cs.indiana.edu/docproject/zen/zen-1.0_6.html#SEC44

  Lost in Usenet - References (at faqs.org)
    http://www.faqs.org/usenet/

Only the "Best Online Quoting Practices" doesn't mention the practical,
polite limit of four lines on signature blocks, to continue with the
signature length limit, and in that case only because the question of
signature formatting is off-topic for that document.  Despite this, the
ruby-talk (aka comp.lang.ruby, aka Ruby forum) etiquette guidelines do
not mention that at all, while only vaguely referencing USENET
etiquette without links.  That being the case, I'm not terribly
surprised that "anansi" has the impression that undocumented rules are
strictly enforced.  Again, I think either the reference to USENET
etiquette guidelines needs to be eliminated (or made to appear less
directly relevant) or augmented with more complete inclusion of the
expected rules of etiquette and/or links if we wish to avoid such
confusion in the future.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Larry Wall: "A script is what you give the actors.  A program is what you
give the audience."