[Tutor] How to post: Was Re: The Charms of Gmail

[Mark Lawrence]

On 23/12/2013 12:00, Oscar Benjamin wrote:
> On 22 December 2013 21:01, Dominik George <nik at naturalnet.de> wrote:
>>
>> And it is what I hate *most*, especially on mailing lists. It makes me
>> want to call for a complete GMail ban, because it appears GMail users
>> *always* manage to do such things ...
>
> Can we please focus on being welcoming to newcomers instead of making
> unfounded generalisations?
>
> I think it's very unfortunate that so many threads on python-list get
> hijacked by flame wars about newsgroup etiquette but I don't want to
> make it worse by wading in on them there. At least here in the tutor
> list can we just try to be inviting? Keith has received several (IMO)
> slightly rude and unhelpful replies about how to post here and now
> you're having a go at all gmail users! Every email client has its
> quirks and gmail is no exception but it can be used in a perfectly
> reasonable way.
>
> Suggestions about how to post should be given as advice rather than
> criticism. It's obvious that the expected conduct on this list (no
> plain-text, interleaved reply, quote attribution etc.) are surprising
> to the majority of newcomers here. So when someone isn't aware of the
> conventions or doesn't yet know how to follow them with their
> technology then we shouldn't be surprised and certainly shouldn't make
> them feel inadequate.
>
> In short, if you're not going to offer constructive advice then please
> don't bother. Being inviting to newcomers - showing *real* etiquette -
> is significantly more important than at-all-times maintaining
> newsgroup etiquette.
>
>
> Oscar

I entirely agree.  I'll offer to supply the cotton wool, baby oil, bibs 
and nappies that we can wrap the newbies up in as we don't want to 
offend them.  I mean if we do offend them, they might desert us for 
places such as stackoverflow, where they can read top voted answers that 
are completely wrong.  They'll feel great but may have been lead up the 
garden path regarding Python.

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask 
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence