[development] Mail List Etiquette . . .

[Jason Flatt]

This whole topic of conversation is not new nor unique to Drupal or Gerhard. I 
spent several years on the Source Mage development team, and it was not 
uncommon for a new person to show up on the mail list with a "Why is this.." 
or a "We should.." type of post only to be pointed (sometimes politely, 
sometimes rudely - it largely depended on the topic, the person doing the 
pointing and sometimes that person's current mood) to the mail list archives 
and previous discussions of the topic. I challenge any one of you to search 
through the archives of any development list and not find the same sort of 
occasional cyclic conversations. If you do find a list without them, chances 
are good the list is not very lively.

On-line communities are not new, and didn't originate with Drupal, the World 
Wide Web nor the Internet. Anyone who does not have the fore-thought or 
inclination to do a little leg work before posting, especially with a list 
like this one, will eventually meet with people like Gerhard, and meet the 
same fate. I see that happen a lot on other development and support mail 
lists. This list isn't about teaching people list etiquette, and I believe 
there is some amount assumption made that anyone here has some familiarity 
and experience with mail list etiquette, and therefore, should act 
accordingly.

I agree with sime and Jaza in that Gerhard's response was much more tame than 
it could have been. It did stop me from potentially replying to a thread that 
would eventually meet the same fate of it's predecessors, as was his 
intention.

-- 
Jason Flatt
http://www.oadaeh.net/
Father of Six:  http://www.flattfamily.com/ (Joseph, 13; Cramer, 11; Travis, 
9; Angela; Harry, 5; and William, 12:04 am, 12-29-2005)
Linux User:     http://www.kubuntu.org/
Drupal Fanatic: http://drupal.org/