Re: Update to "Reporting Guidelines" on the cygwin site

[Doug Henderson <djndnbvg@gmail.com>]

On Mon, 20 Jan 2020 at 23:52, David Finnie <> wrote:
(snipped)
> Being a fairly new member of this mailing list, I did carefully read the
> guidelines about using the mailing list, but there was no mention of no
(snipped)
> Dave

As a long time user of cygwin and this mailing list, and a Gmail user
since it was an invitational-only beta product, I have developed a few
habits that help me adhere to the message styles and forms used by
many other posters on this mailing list.

1, I click Reply or Reply to All and trim the list of recipients to
only the list address which shows as cygwin (cygwin@cygwin.com). Often
I add my own address as a BCC, because the list manager will not echo
my message.

2, I pop-out the reply so it in a separate browser window (or tab).
(This makes it easier to switch back and forth between my reply and
the original message.)

3, I change the message mode to Plain text mode. This eliminates the
HTML part of the reply, which will get the message rejected.

4. I click the ellipsis to display the quoted message, and remove the
pair of blank lines before the header for the quoted message.

5. I edit the header for the quoted message to remove the email
address of the recipient (a courtesy to the author), and remove the
author's signature lines but leave my own Gmail generated signature.

At this point I am ready to complete my reply. Here, I could pass the
buck, so to speak, to the many email guides on the internet. Since
this message is mainly about Gmail, you can just visit
https://www.google.com/search?q=email+guides and go from there, But
for another ¢¢ you get this …

In the cygwin mailing lists the reply often takes one of two forms.
The simplest is full or partial quote and reply (like this one); the
other is a point by point reply.

In the simplest form, I may remove part of the original message,
leaving enough to show the context of my message within the stream of
messages from the original to the current message. Sometimes for
clarity, I will add something like (snipped) or <elided> to indicate
where I have remove some of the previous message. Then I add the main
body of my reply between the remaining quoted text and my signature.

The more complex form is an extension to the previous where I may
insert responses to specific questions or subject matter on location
in the original post. Again, if I remove OP's text, I try to leave
enough of the original to provide context.

And finally, a reminder that you can visit the Cygwin Project mailing
list archives at https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/ to view messages you
don't have available
locally.

HTH,
Doug

PS: Use a spell checker if you can, but more importantly, proof read
(before you hit send), so you can fix typos and thinkos.

-- 
Doug Henderson, Calgary, Alberta, Canada - from gmail.com

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