Обсуждение: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?

> On Jan 15, 2021, at 21:51, Hemil Ruparel <hemilruparel2002@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list so I am posting it here. This discussion sparked from
thismessage.  

If you feel someone is being disruptive, or abusive, there is a Code of Conduct process:

    https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/coc/
--
-- Christophe Pettus
   xof@thebuild.com

> On Jan 15, 2021, at 21:51, Hemil Ruparel <hemilruparel2002@gmail.com> wrote:
> It's my personal opinion. But i personally do not want to deal with entitled people who cannot do basic google
searches.

Well, I have to mention that you don't have to deal with them.  It might be slightly irritating to read questions like
that,but they really aren't choking the list, and you can just move on to a different question that you feel like
answering.

There is also a virtue in people asking very basic questions on the list, even one that could be revealed by a search,
becauseit gives people who are not deep experts a chance to answer the question. 
--
-- Christophe Pettus
   xof@thebuild.com

> On Jan 15, 2021, at 22:10, Hemil Ruparel <hemilruparel2002@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I fear that mailing lists become like quora.

pgsql-general is almost old enough to drink. :)  The very first message I could find with a reliable date is from 31
May2000.  I think after nearly 21 years, we don't have much to worry about in that regard. 

That message also includes the statements:

> What you are asking for is replication, which is not easy to implement, and almost damn impossible to get it RIGHT.

and

> Now, what is WAL? When is it scheduled for implementation?

... which is pretty wild all by itself.
--
-- Christophe Pettus
   xof@thebuild.com

> On Jan 15, 2021, at 22:19, Hemil Ruparel <hemilruparel2002@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have no problems if there are one or two questions which are exactly the same. I give them the benefit of doubt.
WhatI won't tolerate are entitled people who think we work for them for free and that they are entitled to receive and
answer.

I suppose it would be rude to point out that PostgreSQL list style is to not top-post?  I have to say, if you are going
tobe firm with people about etiquette... 

If someone gets abusive about not receiving help (and it does happen, sadly), that's exactly the kind of thing the Code
ofConduct was designed for.  If they are seriously spamming the list, likewise. 

For a lot of people, though, they just aren't familiar with list etiquette, do not have English as their first language
andare not clear what is being asked of them, or just don't know the resources out there. 

I would assume they are acting in good faith.  If you politely point out resources to them and they get snappish, then
itcan become a CoC issue.  Otherwise, I think that being generous in what we receive and accurate in what we reply, as
withany protocol, is the right answer. 
--
-- Christophe Pettus
   xof@thebuild.com

This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list so I am posting it here. This discussion sparked from this message. 

We should clearly mention on the postgres mailing list page that people are encouraged to do their own research and that we are a community of people who help for free. And so we expect OP to do basic initial research. And the OP is not entitled to receive an answer as we are not bound by any contract. We spend our personal time away from our busy schedule to help others and we have the right to choose who we give our time to.

Another important point is we need a mechanism to prevent polluting our community. We need to raise the bar a little. Or we become like quora. Where the same question is posted thousands of times with the exact same wording. Stack Exchange has taken it to the extreme to the point that it's become toxic for newbies. We need to be somewhere in between. I propose when the first time someone posts such a question, we give them the benefit of doubt and point them to resources which they should consider before posting. Second time, we warn them not to do this again and use the resources they have at their disposal. The third time we should temporarily ban them (say for a week).

It's my personal opinion. But i personally do not want to deal with entitled people who cannot do basic google searches.

Exactly my point. We need to raise the bar of the behavior we tolerate. This should not be tolerated. We need to set an example. The person in question clearly understood english and I have never seen a person who could use mailing lists but not google. So that's out of the question.

We are not free consultants. And you are not entitled to shit. You are probably being paid to work on that project. We are not. Your problem. Fix it yourself. Or at least have to courtesy to google it.

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 12:06 PM Rob Sargent <robjsargent@gmail.com> wrote:

I watched this sadness play out.  It had nothing to do with the OP's original question.  Rather someone with feelings hurt from a separate thread (table correlation) felt the need drag that squabble over to the focal issue here (tools).  I was tempted bring up the COC but I'm not really a believer. 

We see these flare ups almost as frequently as the repetition of the "tune pg tool" request.  They die out pretty quickly especially when an obvious expert declines to waste any more of the offender's (offended's) time.

On 1/15/21 10:51 PM, Hemil Ruparel wrote:

This is a meta discussion. I couldn't find a meta mailing list so I am posting it here. This discussion sparked from this message. 

We should clearly mention on the postgres mailing list page that people are encouraged to do their own research and that we are a community of people who help for free. And so we expect OP to do basic initial research. And the OP is not entitled to receive an answer as we are not bound by any contract. We spend our personal time away from our busy schedule to help others and we have the right to choose who we give our time to.

Another important point is we need a mechanism to prevent polluting our community. We need to raise the bar a little. Or we become like quora. Where the same question is posted thousands of times with the exact same wording. Stack Exchange has taken it to the extreme to the point that it's become toxic for newbies. We need to be somewhere in between. I propose when the first time someone posts such a question, we give them the benefit of doubt and point them to resources which they should consider before posting. Second time, we warn them not to do this again and use the resources they have at their disposal. The third time we should temporarily ban them (say for a week).

It's my personal opinion. But i personally do not want to deal with entitled people who cannot do basic google searches.

> On Jan 15, 2021, at 22:19, Hemil Ruparel <hemilruparel2002@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have no problems if there are one or two questions which are exactly the same. I give them the benefit of doubt. What I won't tolerate are entitled people who think we work for them for free and that they are entitled to receive and answer.

I suppose it would be rude to point out that PostgreSQL list style is to not top-post?  I have to say, if you are going to be firm with people about etiquette...

If someone gets abusive about not receiving help (and it does happen, sadly), that's exactly the kind of thing the Code of Conduct was designed for.  If they are seriously spamming the list, likewise.

For a lot of people, though, they just aren't familiar with list etiquette, do not have English as their first language and are not clear what is being asked of them, or just don't know the resources out there.

I would assume they are acting in good faith.  If you politely point out resources to them and they get snappish, then it can become a CoC issue.  Otherwise, I think that being generous in what we receive and accurate in what we reply, as with any protocol, is the right answer.

Hemil Ruparel <hemilruparel2002@gmail.com> writes:

> Exactly my point. We need to raise the bar of the behavior we tolerate.
> This should not be tolerated. We need to set an example. The person in
> question clearly understood english and I have never seen a person who
> could use mailing lists but not google. So that's out of the question.
>
> We are not free consultants. And you are not entitled to shit. You are
> probably being paid to work on that project. We are not. Your problem. Fix
> it yourself. Or at least have to courtesy to google it.
>

While I can understand your frustration, I disagree with your position.

It is too subjective and difficult to apply/adopt such a strong position
and could too easily backfire, resulting in a perception of an elitist,
unwelcoming and unfriendly community.

Banning should be reserved for the most serious and abusive cases.
Banning because someone appears to be acting entitled or lazy is hard to
assess in a non-bias manner and likely has too much cultural variation
to applied consistently. Someone you feel who is being entitled or lazy
might be someone I feel is frustrated, may lack good communication
and/or social skills or might simply be immature and in need of some
guidance and education. My response may also differ depending on my own
state of mind and mood at the time when I read the message.

I've been on the postgres lists for some years now and to be honest,
have not noticed this type of issue very often. There are occasionally
rude and lazy individuals who may appear to be acting entitled, but they
soon go away. In some respects, the list is self-moderating because
people who do act poorly soon get ignored and their messages die out
with no responses.

The great benefit of lists like these is that you can just ignore anyone
you think are rude, entitled or fail to put in the effort you believe is
warranted before their question/issue needs attention. Many mail clients
will even allow you to 'block' specific senders. I have done this once
with someone from a different list. I don't know if they are still
behaving badly as now I never see their messages.

My advice would be to just delete and move on, a luxury you don't have
when you are employed and paid to deal with such messages, which is one
reason I don't like or have the temperament to fulfil the difficult
service/support desk roles which too often maligned and fail to get the
recognition they deserve.

Tim

I am not asking people to get banned the moment they ask easy questions. I am 18. Believe me I have done that too (way more than i would like to admit ;P). I am just saying we should guide them. But there are some people who do not wish to be guided. They just want spoonfed answers which is untolerable in my opinion. You need to be ready to learn on your own. And attempt to struggle with your problem for at least a few hours before asking for help

Hi Mike,

> On 16. Jan, 2021, at 18:29, Michael Nolan <htfoot@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There's so much garbage in a Google search any more that they're becoming nearly useless.  Between 'sponsored' hits
andones that have little or no relevance but throw in words to get included, I find as often as not that IF Google
findswhat I'm looking for, it'll be several pages in.   
>
> At some point there may be a Next Great Search Engine, at least I hope so.

I always put "postgres" or "postgresql" in front of my searches. That almost always yields results one of which
containsuseful information. 

Or use duckduckgo or some other search engine.

Cheers,
Paul

On 2021-Jan-16, Hemil Ruparel wrote:

> Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted

One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not
to do it, and teaching others the same.  Same with not quoting entire
messages on reply.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera       Valdivia, Chile

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Paul Förster wrote:

> Or use duckduckgo or some other search engine.

+1

Rich

> On Jan 16, 2021, at 11:00 AM, Rich Shepard <rshepard@appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Paul Förster wrote:
>
>> Or use duckduckgo or some other search engine.
>
> +1
>
> Rich
>
And I apologize for a couple of toppers in this thread. Recent changes to mailer
>

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 02:50:58PM -0300, Álvaro Herrera wrote:
> On 2021-Jan-16, Hemil Ruparel wrote:
> 
> > Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted
> 
> One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not
> to do it, and teaching others the same.  Same with not quoting entire
> messages on reply.

That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
others have to view.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             https://enterprisedb.com

  The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee

El día sábado, enero 16, 2021 a las 02:50:58p. m. -0300, Alvaro Herrera escribió:

> One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not
> to do it, and teaching others the same.  Same with not quoting entire
> messages on reply.

+1

    matthias
-- 
Matthias Apitz, ✉ guru@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
¡Con Cuba no te metas!  «»  Don't mess with Cuba!  «»  Leg Dich nicht mit Kuba an!
http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2020/12/25/en-video-con-cuba-no-te-metas/

On 2021-Jan-16, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 02:50:58PM -0300, Álvaro Herrera wrote:
> > On 2021-Jan-16, Hemil Ruparel wrote:
> > 
> > > Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted
> > 
> > One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not
> > to do it, and teaching others the same.  Same with not quoting entire
> > messages on reply.
> 
> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
> here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
> others have to view.

Yes.  Gmail, by hiding the quoted part of the message, has taught people
that it's okay to leave the whole thing in place.  For most of the rest
of the world, it's an annoyance.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                            39°49'30"S 73°17'W
"After a quick R of TFM, all I can say is HOLY CR** THAT IS COOL! PostgreSQL was
amazing when I first started using it at 7.2, and I'm continually astounded by
learning new features and techniques made available by the continuing work of
the development team."
Berend Tober, http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2007-08/msg01009.php

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
> here. I have been meaning to mention this problem. Thousands of people are
> reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what others
> have to view.

Bruce,

This has become most common over the past few years. It may be the result of
people using their pocket computers (sold as 'mobile phones') for email and
they don't take the time to delete extraneous lines or scroll to the bottom
to type their reply.

Rich

> On Jan 16, 2021, at 12:26 PM, Rich Shepard <rshepard@appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>> Bruce,
>
> This has become most common over the past few years. It may be the result of
> people using their pocket computers (sold as 'mobile phones') for email and
> they don't take the time to delete extraneous lines or scroll to the bottom
> to type their reply.
>
> Rich
>
>
Typically we hear “bottom post” when we should hear “trim appropriately and bottom post”

It’s not just people on phones. Work place mail boxes are stuffed with multiple copies a same spread sheet as mailers
now“inline” those. 

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> writes:
> On 2021-Jan-16, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
>> here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
>> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
>> others have to view.

> Yes.  Gmail, by hiding the quoted part of the message, has taught people
> that it's okay to leave the whole thing in place.  For most of the rest
> of the world, it's an annoyance.

Top-posting goes along with that.  The gmail style of top-posting and
not trimming what's quoted is sort of okay, as long as you don't actually
need to read any of what's quoted (but then why bother quoting it...)

The combination of bottom-posting and not trimming what you quoted is
actually the worst of all possible worlds, because then people are
forced to scroll through a whole lot of stuff to see what you added.

I see way too many people doing that lately, and to be honest I usually
stop reading their messages once I see that that's what they did.
You should only quote enough to remind the reader of what you're
responding to.

            regards, tom lane

Michael Nolan <htfoot@gmail.com> writes:

> There's so much garbage in a Google search any more that they're becoming
> nearly useless.  Between 'sponsored' hits and ones that have little or no
> relevance but throw in words to get included, I find as often as not that
> IF Google finds what I'm looking for, it'll be several pages in.
>

There is certainly a bit of 'art' or 'black magic' involved when doing a
google to find relevant information and the amount of noise in the
signal has certainly gotten worse. I find putting the key terms early in
your search string can help. However, when dealing with an unfamiliar
topic, knowing what those key terms are can be challenging. This is one
reason I rarely tell people to 'just google for the answer' or assume
they haven't tried when the answer seems quite obvious and easily found
for me.

The change I've noticed over the last decade or so is the amount of
completely wrong or misleading information that is easily found. I
rarely use stack overflow sites these days because too often, the
accepted or most popular answer is wrong or gets a result, but in a poor
manner that is likely to introduce other issues.

The one thing I wish people did was provide clear and concise meta data
with the information they post. Often, I find it difficult to know, for
example, how old the information is or which version of the software it
applies to.

When it comes to PG, I think we are very lucky. In general, I find the
official documentation to be of the highest quality. Sometimes, I can be
a little dense and a few more examples would be useful, but I understand
how hard getting the balance between enough examples and concise
information can be.

It is often in this forum where I find some of the most useful
information and ideas. I really appreciate those contributors who not
only provide an answer to a question, but also include URLs to other
sources which frequently contain more background or details. Pointers to
such valuable resources from those more knowledgeable can save hours of
googling and wading through ill informed and misguided advice.


--
Tim Cross

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 03:34:32PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> writes:
> > On 2021-Jan-16, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
> >> here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
> >> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
> >> others have to view.
> 
> > Yes.  Gmail, by hiding the quoted part of the message, has taught people
> > that it's okay to leave the whole thing in place.  For most of the rest
> > of the world, it's an annoyance.
> 
> Top-posting goes along with that.  The gmail style of top-posting and
> not trimming what's quoted is sort of okay, as long as you don't actually
> need to read any of what's quoted (but then why bother quoting it...)
> 
> The combination of bottom-posting and not trimming what you quoted is
> actually the worst of all possible worlds, because then people are
> forced to scroll through a whole lot of stuff to see what you added.

Agreed.  By telling people not to top-post, we have made it worse in
many cases.

> I see way too many people doing that lately, and to be honest I usually
> stop reading their messages once I see that that's what they did.
> You should only quote enough to remind the reader of what you're
> responding to.

That is also what I do.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             https://enterprisedb.com

  The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee

On 1/16/21 3:01 PM, Rob Sargent wrote:
> Top/Bottom points um, er elided.
>
> Mail has always been well threaded, retaining which message lead to which 
> replies.  How did we get away from relying on that (naked posting)?

Outlook.

-- 
Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.

Hi Bruce,

> On 16. Jan, 2021, at 19:36, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
>
> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
> here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
> others have to view.

+1.

Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate
itmore when people post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need formatting preserved such as select output,
i.e.table data, explain plans, etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one of the worst... 

And then there's people posting screen shots instead of copy/paste... :-(

What a world. Actually, the old Netiquette from the 1990's had it right. But then, who knows about that anymore.

I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and dropping all non plain text attachments would help
alot already. 

Cheers,
Paul

On 1/16/21 2:28 PM, Paul Förster wrote:
> Hi Bruce,
> 
>> On 16. Jan, 2021, at 19:36, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
>>
>> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often
>> here.  I have been meaning to mention this problem.  Thousands of people
>> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what
>> others have to view.
> 
> +1.
> 
> Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even
hateit more when people post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need formatting preserved such as select
output,i.e. table data, explain plans, etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one of the worst...
 

That is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Too many GUI 
email interfaces these days that use 'advanced` formatting. I use 
Thunderbird and it allows me to convert incoming to plain text on the 
fly. Not a perfect system, but it cuts down on a lot of the garish content.

> 
> And then there's people posting screen shots instead of copy/paste... :-(

That is a learning curve thing. Many people don't know that copy and 
paste exists for terminals/GUI's/etc. Most people, once they are pointed 
in the right direction, will change that habit. That is why I would not 
advocate dropping non plain text attachments. Take this as a teaching 
moment and explain the reason why text is a benefit.

> 
> What a world. Actually, the old Netiquette from the 1990's had it right. But then, who knows about that anymore.
> 
> I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and dropping all non plain text attachments would
helpa lot already.
 
> 
> Cheers,
> Paul
> 


-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 11:28:37PM +0100, Paul Förster <paul.foerster@gmail.com> wrote:

> Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of
> varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when people
> post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need formatting
> preserved such as select output, i.e. table data, explain plans,
> etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one of the
> worst...
> 
> [...]
> 
> I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and
> dropping all non plain text attachments would help a lot already.
> 
> Cheers,
> Paul

I once wrote a program to do that very thing:

  http://raf.org/textmail/
  https://github.com/raforg/textmail/

It converts everything it can into plain text (using
lots of helper applications which also need to be
installed), and it deletes everything else, all highly
configurable, of course. It might be possible to
incorporate it into a mailing list, but perhaps that's
a bit draconian. You could probably incorporate it into
your own email flow as emails arrive before you see
them. I've used procmail for that, but imapfilter
(https://github.com/lefcha/imapfilter) might be more
appropriate if your email is in an imap account.

cheers,
raf

Hi Adrian,

> On 16. Jan, 2021, at 23:46, Adrian Klaver <adrian.klaver@aklaver.com> wrote:
>
> That is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

yes, but sometimes, just sometimes, things in the olden days were just better. :-)

> Too many GUI email interfaces these days that use 'advanced` formatting. I use Thunderbird and it allows me to
convertincoming to plain text on the fly. Not a perfect system, but it cuts down on a lot of the garish content. 

I'm on a Mac w/ Big Sur (macOS 11.1) and use Apple Mail. I've been on Macs since 2003. Apple Mail is simple to use and
Ilove it for exactly that. But Apple Mail has everything I expect a mail client to have, it does not allow a couple of
thingswhich other mail clients might have. Some people hate it for exactly that. I set Mail to always compose in plain
textbut there is no way of manipulating incoming mails other than that automatic displaying remote content (HTML links,
etc.)can (and should) be turned off. 

Asking our ex don't-be-evil friend revealed a setting for Apple Mail:
defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE
But that doesn't work (anymore?), at least not with Big Sur.

So I sometimes resort to either hit cmd-opt-u to see the mail text raw source, or better yet, just hit reply and then
dropthe reply after reading. As I set composing to plain text, it will convert any quoted parts. Sometimes, I just
copy/pastethe whole mail for reading over to TextMate, which is also sub-optimal but obviously also gives me
non-proportionalfont reading. 

Still, this is somewhat cumbersome as I have to do that for each mail individually. Thank god, this doesn't happen too
often.Yet, it's still annoying enough. 

> That is a learning curve thing. Many people don't know that copy and paste exists for terminals/GUI's/etc. Most
people,once they are pointed in the right direction, will change that habit. That is why I would not advocate dropping
nonplain text attachments. Take this as a teaching moment and explain the reason why text is a benefit. 

I guess, they only change their behavior because copying/pasting some text is easier to do than creating a windowshot
withaligning the frame manually, etc. But whatever the reason, thank god, some people are willing to learn that if
beingtold. 

Cheers,
Paul

Hi raf,

> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 02:59, raf <raf@raf.org> wrote:
>
> I once wrote a program to do that very thing:
>
>  http://raf.org/textmail/
>  https://github.com/raforg/textmail/

thanks very much for the nice offer but I mostly read my Mails on a Mac, sometimes Windows, but never Linux. I have no
mailaccess on Linux. At home I use Macs and at work I (have to :-() use Windows as desktops. So textmail is not an
optionfor me. 

Cheers,
Paul

Paul Förster <paul.foerster@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Adrian,
>
> I'm on a Mac w/ Big Sur (macOS 11.1) and use Apple Mail. I've been on Macs since 2003. Apple Mail is simple to use
andI love it for exactly that. But Apple Mail has everything I expect a mail client to have, it does not allow a couple
ofthings which other mail clients might have. Some people hate it for exactly that. I set Mail to always compose in
plaintext but there is no way of manipulating incoming mails other than that automatic displaying remote content (HTML
links,etc.) can (and should) be turned off. 
>
> So I sometimes resort to either hit cmd-opt-u to see the mail text raw source, or better yet, just hit reply and then
dropthe reply after reading. As I set composing to plain text, it will convert any quoted parts. Sometimes, I just
copy/pastethe whole mail for reading over to TextMate, which is also sub-optimal but obviously also gives me
non-proportionalfont reading. 
>
> Still, this is somewhat cumbersome as I have to do that for each mail individually. Thank god, this doesn't happen
toooften. Yet, it's still annoying enough. 
>

I've used a number of GUI mail clients, including Apple Mail. However, I
find still the fastest, most feature rich and powerful client is the
text based client mutt. My other favourite is mu4e (Emacs client). While
Apple Mail has reasonable keyboard shortcuts, mutt and mu4e can be fully
keyboard driven and both have great (but different) abilities for
customisation and dealing with large amounts of mail. The thing I hate
most (and there is a lot to hate) with Outlook is the dependence on
using the mouse for many operations. Being able to preview, sort, move,
delete, messages and threads just using the keyboard makes dealing with
mail much easier to deal with. Having a client which can do
sophisticated sorting, flagging and searching messages/threads is essential and
being able to easily automate where possible really helps.

Highly recommend a mutt and imap combination. Your not locked into any
particular mail folder format, can still access things via mobile
devices and can process messages fast and efficiently.

>> That is a learning curve thing. Many people don't know that copy and paste exists for terminals/GUI's/etc. Most
people,once they are pointed in the right direction, will change that habit. That is why I would not advocate dropping
nonplain text attachments. Take this as a teaching moment and explain the reason why text is a benefit. 
>
> I guess, they only change their behavior because copying/pasting some text is easier to do than creating a windowshot
withaligning the frame manually, etc. But whatever the reason, thank god, some people are willing to learn that if
beingtold. 
>

It is easy to forget the different experience levels and sophistication
of users. I once had to help resolve a problem a developer was having
with a database. I asked him to send me the exact error message. He
moaned and said that was a real hassle. I couldn't understand why he
found that so difficult to do. I decided to get him to show me his
workflow.

When the error occurred, he would take a screen shot of his window, send
it to the printer, wait for the printer to send back a PDF and then send
the issue with the PDF attached.

He was amazed when I showed him all he needed to do was highlight the
error message, copy it and paste it into the message. This guy was one
of the senior developers on the team.

I switched employers a few weeks later.

--
Tim Cross

Paul Förster <paul.foerster@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi raf,
>
>> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 02:59, raf <raf@raf.org> wrote:
>>
>> I once wrote a program to do that very thing:
>>
>>  http://raf.org/textmail/
>>  https://github.com/raforg/textmail/
>
> thanks very much for the nice offer but I mostly read my Mails on a Mac, sometimes Windows, but never Linux. I have
nomail access on Linux. At home I use Macs and at work I (have to :-() use Windows as desktops. So textmail is not an
optionfor me. 
>

There is nothing stopping you from using a text mail program, like mutt,
on macOS.

--
Tim Cross

Hi Tim,

> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 09:43, Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Highly recommend a mutt and imap combination. Your not locked into any
> particular mail folder format, can still access things via mobile
> devices and can process messages fast and efficiently.

also, there's the good old elm. ;-)

> He was amazed when I showed him all he needed to do was highlight the
> error message, copy it and paste it into the message. This guy was one
> of the senior developers on the team.
>
> I switched employers a few weeks later.

one just can't know it all, I can understand that. But I expect a senior developer to develop good software. Knowing at
leastbasic functionality of the tools s/he uses is one aspect of it. Copy/paste text is a basic thing which I expect a
developerto know how to use, be it a terminal window or the IDE in use. 

The buzz-title "senior" developer/dba/whatever is very relative to what the company sees in you. I found that what is
called"junior" in one company is "senior" or even "seasoned" in the next. These are only buzz words without a proper
normand classification and I don't give them much credit. 

With about 21 years of experience, my company calls me "Senior Oracle DBA". Still, I don't know RAC because we never
hadit, and know only little of Data Guard, which is way too complicated and bloated anyway. Oracle is so bug-ridden
thatI spend all of my day searching for fixes for databases and the OEM. Thank god, my day shifts more and more to
PostgreSQL.:-) 

Cheers,
Paul

Hi Tim,

> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 10:04, Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There is nothing stopping you from using a text mail program, like mutt,
> on macOS.

right. And what I said was not meant to be a complaint. Otherwise I would have complained long ago. It was just a wish.
:-)

Cheers,
Paul

> Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot  
> of varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when  
> people post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need  
> formatting preserved such as select output, i.e. table data, explain  
> plans, etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one  
> of the worst...

Well, one could say that with html messages one can "force" a  
monospaced font like consolas or courier. Then again, there is no  
guarantee that the receiving end does have it installed. And on top,  
everyone is free to have her/his mail client to display plain text in  
monospaced font and is only to blame her/himself if not doing so.

> And then there's people posting screen shots instead of copy/paste... :-(

+1

> I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and  
> dropping all non plain text attachments would help a lot already.

I would not do that. It is the work on the wrong end with doubtful  
result. Wouldn't it be better to reject non-plain-text postings?

While at it, is there a rule of thumb for the length of inline code -  
in comparison to attaching code files in comparison to using something  
like pastebin.com? I only found very coarse instructions on what to do  
on the lists. Have I been missing a link to a netiquette page?

Cheers Thiemo


-- 
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Hi Thiemo,

> On 17. Jan, 2021, at 11:23, Thiemo Kellner <thiemo@gelassene-pferde.biz> wrote:
>
> I would not do that. It is the work on the wrong end with doubtful result. Wouldn't it be better to reject
non-plain-textpostings? 

coming to think of it:
+1

> While at it, is there a rule of thumb for the length of inline code - in comparison to attaching code files in
comparisonto using something like pastebin.com? I only found very coarse instructions on what to do on the lists. Have
Ibeen missing a link to a netiquette page? 

no, there's no formal statement that I know of. But as you can see, I for example only quote the sentences or
paragraphsI refer to, which is what the old Netiquette said and which I find makes perfect sense. I also rarely quote
morethan one quote level, and only when absolutely necessary. 

Cheers,
Paul

Hello,

I disagree in some of the points:

El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 10:10:28a. m. -0700, David G. Johnston escribió:

> Neither images nor non-plain-text means that the content is unreadable, not
> useful, or problematic.  Dealing with these on an email-by-email basis
> through the community seems fine.

Mails to a mailing list should be text (or even ASCII) because not all
subscribers can read HTML or images and they're not needed to describe a
problem.

Images have the risk to have malicious content with the intention to use bugs
in the image viewers. HTML can "phone home" with one pixel href's to
check if you opened the HTML page.

> As we seem to be compiling a list for people to review upfront (the major
> points in this thread should make it to the website and be linked to by
> community responders when encountering said problematic posts).
> 
> Always reply-to-all.

Why? Why I (and other subscribers) have to have the same mail twice in
the mbox?

> ...

    matthias
-- 
Matthias Apitz, ✉ guru@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
¡Con Cuba no te metas!  «»  Don't mess with Cuba!  «»  Leg Dich nicht mit Kuba an!
http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2020/12/25/en-video-con-cuba-no-te-metas/

On 1/17/21 11:04 AM, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I disagree in some of the points:
> 
> El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 10:10:28a. m. -0700, David G. Johnston escribió:
> 
>> Neither images nor non-plain-text means that the content is unreadable, not
>> useful, or problematic.  Dealing with these on an email-by-email basis
>> through the community seems fine.
> 
> Mails to a mailing list should be text (or even ASCII) because not all
> subscribers can read HTML or images and they're not needed to describe a
> problem.
> 
> Images have the risk to have malicious content with the intention to use bugs
> in the image viewers. HTML can "phone home" with one pixel href's to
> check if you opened the HTML page.
> 
>> As we seem to be compiling a list for people to review upfront (the major
>> points in this thread should make it to the website and be linked to by
>> community responders when encountering said problematic posts).
>>
>> Always reply-to-all.
> 
> Why? Why I (and other subscribers) have to have the same mail twice in
> the mbox?

You can prevent that by going here:

https://lists.postgresql.org/manage/

and checking:

Don't receive an extra copy of mails when listed in To or CC fields

Reply All is used so the folks involved in the conversation get the 
emails in a timely manner even if the mail server is running slow 
delivering to everyone else.

> 
>> ...
> 
>     matthias
> 


-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 11:11:01a. m. -0800, Adrian Klaver escribió:

> You can prevent that by going here:
> 
> https://lists.postgresql.org/manage/
> 
> and checking:
> 
> Don't receive an extra copy of mails when listed in To or CC fields

Thanks. I wasn't aware of it and switched it of now.

    matthias
-- 
Matthias Apitz, ✉ guru@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
¡Con Cuba no te metas!  «»  Don't mess with Cuba!  «»  Leg Dich nicht mit Kuba an!
http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2020/12/25/en-video-con-cuba-no-te-metas/

El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 12:23:23p. m. -0700, David G. Johnston escribió:

> Its 2021;

Yes, and for what this argument is good for? Is 2021 better than 2020 or
even worth?

> if an image is useful for the topic at hand (say designing a
> system and having a diagram showing that design) then that image should be
> allowed.

If someone needs really an image to show a problem, it can be put on
some server and the link could be posted, like this one showing a PANIC
of a system http://www.unixarea.de/fbsd-panic-20210110.jpg

> It's useful to be able to see who is involved in the discussion by looking
> at the recipients and being able to know which of the hundreds of -general
> threads that hit my inbox I actually replied to in the past and thus can
> filter them to bring to my attention while leaving alone ones I'm not
> involved in.

I take the decision of purging or not a mail based on its subject, and
after open a mail based of things like top postings (these get purged
without further reading). I know the mail subjects I was involved or on which
I answered or which I initiated.

    matthias
-- 
Matthias Apitz, ✉ guru@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
¡Con Cuba no te metas!  «»  Don't mess with Cuba!  «»  Leg Dich nicht mit Kuba an!
http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2020/12/25/en-video-con-cuba-no-te-metas/

On 2021-01-16 14:01:44 -0700, Rob Sargent wrote:
> Mail has always been well threaded, retaining which message lead to which
> replies.  How did we get away from relying on that (naked posting)?

Has that ever been a thing? Quoting (and trimming) the message you are
replying to has been normal since at least the late 1980's (when I
started to use E-Mail). Unix-based mailers (at least since elm, not sure
about mailx) automatically quoted the previous mail with the ">" prefix.
Eudora (on Windows) did that also, if I remember correctly. Few people
deleted everything. Probably because most MUAs displayed only one
message at a time. The first MUA I've seen that displayed an entire
thread at once was Gmail.

        hp

--
   _  | Peter J. Holzer    | Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) |                    |
| |   | hjp@hjp.at         |    -- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |       challenge!"

On 2021-01-17 11:23:37 +0100, Thiemo Kellner wrote:
> > Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of
> > varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when people
> > post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need formatting
> > preserved such as select output, i.e. table data, explain plans, etc.
> > Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one of the worst...
>
> Well, one could say that with html messages one can "force" a monospaced
> font like consolas or courier. Then again, there is no guarantee that the
> receiving end does have it installed.

"font-family: monospace" should always work. A MUA sending HTML mail can
(and should) therefore specify e.g. "font-family: Consolas, monospace",
not just "font-family: Consolas" to provide for a fallback.

(Do Webfonts work in Email? Do we even *want* them to work?)


> And on top, everyone is free to have her/his mail client to display
> plain text in monospaced font and is only to blame her/himself if not
> doing so.

Yeah. Unfortunately many people don't know how to configure that (or use
a MUA where it can't be configured). So unfortunatly we can't assume
that plain text == monospaced. As someone who likes to underscore stuff
in quotes and draw ASCII (or Unicode) diagrams, I find that annoying,
but I can't change it.


> > I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and
> > dropping all non plain text attachments would help a lot already.
>
> I would not do that. It is the work on the wrong end with doubtful result.
> Wouldn't it be better to reject non-plain-text postings?

ACK.


> While at it, is there a rule of thumb for the length of inline code - in
> comparison to attaching code files in comparison to using something like
> pastebin.com? I only found very coarse instructions on what to do on the
> lists. Have I been missing a link to a netiquette page?

I don't think there is. My rule od thumb is that it should be short
enough to read as part of the message. Of course this is very subjective
and may even depend on my mood (Sometimes I find a 20 line SQL query too
long, sometimes I'm happy to dig through 200 lines of Perl code ...). It
also depends very much on coding style: If code is badly formatted or
organized, I'll give up much sooner.

        hp

--
   _  | Peter J. Holzer    | Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) |                    |
| |   | hjp@hjp.at         |    -- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |       challenge!"

On 2021-01-17 11:11:01 -0800, Adrian Klaver wrote:
> On 1/17/21 11:04 AM, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> > > Always reply-to-all.
> >
> > Why? Why I (and other subscribers) have to have the same mail twice in
> > the mbox?
>
> You can prevent that by going here:
>
> https://lists.postgresql.org/manage/
>
> and checking:
>
> Don't receive an extra copy of mails when listed in To or CC fields

For me that works in the wrong direction. I absolutely want to get the
mails through the mailing-list, so that they are correctly filtered. I
would prefer to not get an extra copy directly. (but I can live with
that).

Of course the mailing list server can't filter mails it never sees.

Mutt adds a header to indicate the preferences of the sender, but I
think that is only recognized by mutt, so it's not a general solution.

        hp

--
   _  | Peter J. Holzer    | Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) |                    |
| |   | hjp@hjp.at         |    -- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |       challenge!"

On Sat, 2021-01-16 at 18:22 +1100, Tim Cross wrote:
> Hemil Ruparel <hemilruparel2002@gmail.com> writes:
> > Exactly my point. We need to raise the bar of the behavior we tolerate.
> > This should not be tolerated. We need to set an example. The person in
> > question clearly understood english and I have never seen a person who
> > could use mailing lists but not google. So that's out of the question.
> > We are not free consultants. And you are not entitled to shit. You are
> > probably being paid to work on that project. We are not. Your problem. Fix
> > it yourself. Or at least have to courtesy to google it.
> 
> While I can understand your frustration, I disagree with your position.
> 
> It is too subjective and difficult to apply/adopt such a strong position
> and could too easily backfire, resulting in a perception of an elitist,
> unwelcoming and unfriendly community.
> 
> Banning should be reserved for the most serious and abusive cases.

+1

I personally find Hemil's attitude and his persistent refusal to
bottom-post more disruptive than the original question.

pgsql-general should remain a low-threshold forum where nothing about
PostgreSQL is off-topic.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe
-- 
Cybertec | https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com

On 2021-01-17 21:25:29 +0100, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> El día domingo, enero 17, 2021 a las 12:23:23p. m. -0700, David G. Johnston escribió:
>
> > Its 2021;
>
> Yes, and for what this argument is good for? Is 2021 better than 2020 or
> even worth?

It's not about being better, but about what infrastructure or
capabilities you can expect.

In 1990, MIME didn't exist. E-Mail was by definition US-ASCII text
(except for uuencode or by private arrangement). People often used text
terminals and may not have any Internet access.

In 2000, MIME existed, some MUAs supported HTML (at quite different
levels), most people who had Email also had Internet (though they might
not stay online while reading mail to save phone costs) and they would
typically read mail on a bitmapped display (though possibly in a
terminal emulator).

In 2021, MIME is actually implemented correctly in most MUAs, HTML/CSS
is very widely supported (but not nearly at the level supported by
browsers), most people (well, their devices) are online 24x7, and
terminal emulators are still a thing (I write this in vim called from
mutt in an xterm). Oh, and any bandwidth wasted by HTML or images is
negligible compared to cat videos. OTOH, they might read the mail on a
device with a very small screen and an atrocious "keyboard". Or use a
MUA which can't quote correctly.

So my expectations on what a recipient can or cannot read or how they
can format their mails are somewhat different than they were in 1990 or
2000 or 2010. They will again be different in 2030.


> > if an image is useful for the topic at hand (say designing a
> > system and having a diagram showing that design) then that image should be
> > allowed.
>
> If someone needs really an image to show a problem, it can be put on
> some server and the link could be posted, like this one showing a PANIC
> of a system http://www.unixarea.de/fbsd-panic-20210110.jpg

That has the disadvantage of not being archived.

        hp

--
   _  | Peter J. Holzer    | Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) |                    |
| |   | hjp@hjp.at         |    -- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |       challenge!"

"Peter J. Holzer" <hjp-pgsql@hjp.at> writes:
> On 2021-01-17 21:25:29 +0100, Matthias Apitz wrote:
>> If someone needs really an image to show a problem, it can be put on
>> some server and the link could be posted, like this one showing a PANIC
>> of a system http://www.unixarea.de/fbsd-panic-20210110.jpg

> That has the disadvantage of not being archived.

Yeah, we actually pretty strongly discourage posts that provide links
to external pages instead of being self-contained.  The PG mailing
list archives go back nearly 25 years at this point, and it's mighty
handy to be able to read old messages without having to constantly
consult the Wayback Machine (and hope it captured $whatever).
There's only a *hard* policy of that sort with respect to patch
submissions; but bug reports are likewise more likely to be taken
seriously and acted on if they don't require looking at external
resources.

            regards, tom lane

Hi Peter,

> On 18. Jan, 2021, at 17:34, Peter J. Holzer <hjp-pgsql@hjp.at> wrote:
>
> In 1990, MIME didn't exist. E-Mail was by definition US-ASCII text
> (except for uuencode or by private arrangement). People often used text
> terminals and may not have any Internet access.

yes, those were the days! :-) As for people using computers these days, I often wish I could go back in time. :-P

Cheers,
Paul

On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 18:05:34 +0100, Paul Förster wrote:
> Hi Peter,
>
>> On 18. Jan, 2021, at 17:34, Peter J. Holzer <hjp-pgsql@hjp.at> wrote:
>>
>> In 1990, MIME didn't exist. E-Mail was by definition US-ASCII text
>> (except for uuencode or by private arrangement). People often used text
>> terminals and may not have any Internet access.
>
> yes, those were the days! :-) As for people using computers
> these days, I often wish I could go back in time. :-P
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
>

This was my first Internet around 1990: a 1200 baud modem and UUCP for mail and News.

matthias


--
Matthias Apitz, ✉ guru@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045
Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub
Без книги нет знания, без знания нет коммунизма (Влaдимир Ильич Ленин)
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Sin libros no hay saber - sin saber no hay comunismo. (Vladimir Ilich Lenin)

Has that ever been a thing? Quoting (and trimming) the message you are
replying to has been normal since at least the late 1980's (when I
started to use E-Mail).