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WebAIM list etiquette and rules

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From: Jared Smith
Date: Dec 7, 2009 9:42PM

Thank you for the very good discussion regarding list etiquette and
rules. As you know, we are fairly laid back around here, but here are
a few 'rules' to keep in mind.

- This list is for web accessibility discussion. It's not intended to
be a technical support forum for assistive technology, etc. You are
welcome to post your web sites for accessibility review, post details
about conferences or trainings, or other web accessibility related
products or services so long as you don't only spam us with your own
'stuff'.

- Be civil and respectful. Controversy and even argument are fine, but
don't make it personal.

- With over 1000 subscribers, please think twice before posting. In
just the last week, over 200,000 distinct messages have been sent out.
This is WONDERFUL, but make sure what you're posting is useful to
others. "Thank you" or "OK" messages are not necessary. If you don't
have something meaningful to contribute to everybody, please respond
off-list.

- The debate over top vs. bottom posting is as settled as global
warming science (apparently). We do not maintain strict rules about
this, but we do kindly ask that you always trim your messages to the
relevant portions of the message you are responding to. I think you
will find that when you do this, that bottom posting (posting your
message below the quoted portion of the message you are responding to)
or inline posting tends to make much more sense. We recommend bottom
posting for list messages.

- Please maintain subject lines. This helps e-mail clients and our
list archives maintain the threaded nature of the discussion. List
digest subscribers must manually change the subject line to match the
portion of the digest they are responding to. Make sure the subject
for new postings is accurate, informative, and descriptive (just like
web page titles).

- Make sure your vacation auto-responders are NOT set to send to the
list. Nobody cares that you're out of the office anyway.

- Keep message signatures to a minimum. Your full page e-mail legal
disclaimer and confidentiality notice carries no legal weight anyway,
so please don't include it on every message.

- Avoid attachments. The list allows them up to 100KB, but only send
them if necessary. Ensure any attachments are in an accessible and
readily supported format.

- List archives are maintained at
http://webaim.org/discussion/archives Note that proper trimming,
subject lines, and everything else mentioned here helps maintain the
integrity and usefulness of these archives.


Finally a few thoughts regarding top vs. bottom posting. Any e-mail
client worth using should properly handle e-mail quoting. Gmail does a
particularly fine job of removing quoted portions of messages unless
you want to view them. If you're tired of hearing "Greater than" in
JAWS, it may be time to find a better e-mail client.

Thanks for making this list such a wonderful resource. Please carry on.

Jared Smith
WebAIM