WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: List etiquette

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: May 26, 2004 11:20AM

On Wednesday, May 26, 2004 Joe Clark sent:

> a. not to use away messages

This is always a problems with lists. Properly set up e-mail clients
should not send autoresponders to lists. If you are using an away
message, please ensure it does not send to the list.

We are implementing means to filter out away messages before they are
sent out, but this involves detecting certain strings within the
Subject line. Ultimately, such messages will make there way on to the
list unless you set your e-mail clients to stop sending them.

> b. never, ever to use HTML

Again, many people will be using e-mail clients that insist on sending
HTML. This will remain an option on the list. When possible, do not
send HTML messages to the list. We will make an attempt to convert
HTML messages to plain text for the digest version. Please be patient
with others who may not be familiar with proper list etiquette.

> c. not to top-post?

Top-posting refers to posting your reply to a message so that the
entire message you are replying to appears below your response. Most
e-mail clients are set up to top-post by default. Top-posting makes
understanding the context of a response difficult and leads to very
cluttered digests. A more informative method involves only quoting
relevant and important portions of the original message (such as I
have done in this message). Again, this list is intended for ALL
people interested in Web accessibility - many of whom may not yet
understand such rather trivial issues.

A very good tutorial on proper list quoting can be found at
http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/

> This list's digests are not standards-compliant in any way

We are working on polishing the digest. What we have in place now is a
functional, yet temporary solution. At this point we're more
interested in digest subscribers getting list content than ensuring
that such messages are structured correctly.

In regards to the archives, because we have implemented a new list
application, the archives are not currently being updated. We will be
manually updating these archives in the near future to include missing
posts from the last few weeks.

If any of you have any comments or suggestions regarding the list,
please respond to me off-list.

Jared Smith
WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind)
Center for Persons with Disabilities
Utah State University