[vorbis] Mailing list FAQ. Yes, you should read it.

[Monty]

Hello folks,

A couple people are visibly not grokking some of the finer points of
proper mailing list use, mostly using 'reply' instead of 'new
message'.  Thus it's time for... the FAQ.  In this case FAQ ==
Frequently Answered Questions.  We answer 'em before you ask 'em.
They're not rules, they're just the way it works.

1) When posting to the list, don't just ignore subject lines, or reply
   to messages that have nothing to do with what you're about to say.
   Sophisticated mail readers (like the ones many of the core
   developers use) 'thread' conversations, grouping messages by
   replies.  Quite a few of us have our mail readers set up to totally
   ignore threads we've previously marked as uninteresting.  Landing
   an unrelated message in the middle of a totally different
   conversation which many of the core folk have marked as
   'uninteresting' will just get you ignored.  We'll never see your
   mail.  We get hundereds of messages a day, and list mail simply has
   to take a low priority through batch handling like that.

   BTW, just editing the subject line is not enough to keep your
   message out of a thread if you hit 'Reply'.  A seperate header is
   embedded in the message called 'In-Reply-To'.  At a guess, the
   pretty graphical mail readers don't let you edit it, or even tell
   you that it's there.  If you want to start a new subject or
   conversation, hit 'New Message' please.  Not 'Reply'.

2) Do not send subscribe/unsubscribe messages to the list; they'll be
   filtered and ignored by the mail list system and no one will ever
   see them.  Follow the instructions listed in the footer of every
   message.  Eg, to unsubscribe, send a message with the single word
   'unsubscribe' in the body to <listname>-request at xiph.org.  If you
   have trouble, a polite request to postmaster at xiph.org will get
   your request to a human.

3) The list software does not allow email in HTML format; it is
   intentionally configured to drop all HTML formatted software on the
   ground with no error and no warning.  The primary motivation for
   this is to block mailspam; this trick alone filters 99% of the
   mailspam that would otherwise flood the lists.

   Outlook and Exchange, by default, tend to be configured to send
   everything in marked up, HTML-like format.  This markup is useless
   to most of us, takes up space, confuses the web archiving software
   and generally does nobody any good.  Oh... and it will cause your
   mail to get dropped; if you're confused why your posts aren't
   showing up on the list, this is probably the reason.  Please turn
   this formatting 'feature' off when posting to xiph.org lists.

That's all I can think of for now.  Happy posting.

Monty

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