Netiquette for forum/developer MLs

Copyright (C) 2003-2004 ABINIT group (MMikami, JMBeuken, XGonze)
This file is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
see ~ABINIT/Infos/copyright or http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.txt.
For the initials of contributors, see ~ABINIT/Infos/contributors .

The ABINIT MLs are available for fruitful information exchange among ABINITioners, thanks to the UCL system and the administrators' hard work.

Now the number of the accounts in the forum ML gets over 1000 from many countries, i.e. GLOBAL. Since our "common sense" may differ from country to country, we strongly feel that we need set up our etiquette to keep the MLs effective. Thus those who want to post e-mails (esp. questions) to the MLs should follow a sort of etiquette ("netiquette") to make the MLs most effective, and the burden of our limited resource ("humanware" as well as hardware) little as possible.

Our netiquette will be :

1. Before posting, please check relevant documents (the FAQ etc.) in ABINIT source archives (src_tests_*.tar.gz) as well as the ML archives.
• Q: How to find relevant documents for my questions ?"
• A: Follow this FAQ !
  
2. Try to make your post "beautiful" as possible. Specifically speaking,
1. Give a meaningful Subject to your e-mail that may help us to find/remember your post easily. We should avoid "HELP","PLEASE","Question", (BLANK), ...
2. Do not cite e-mails that are not relevant to your post. When you want to start a new thread, please do not post by follow-up (reply). This is important, for Mailers/ML web pages make the most use of "thread" idea.
3. Please avoid two-byte characters in your e-mails. (Especially for Asian subscribers, e.g. Chinese characters for "month", "date", "year" etc.). 
4. Please stick to PLAIN TEXT format for posting. About "HOW TO SEND YOUR E-MAIL in PLAIN TEXT ?", you can consult with the online help of your Mailer. The following hyperlinks may also be helpful.
• For MS Outlook Express Users:"Send Plain Text Messages by Default","Send a Message in Plain Text."
• For MS Outlook Users: "Set the Default Message Format","Send a Plain Text Message"," Write a Message Using a Specific Message Format."
• For Other Mailer Users: visit this site and find a solution to send your e-mail as plain text format. Otherwise, try "Googling."
3. Try to make your post "small" as possible. Specifically speaking,
1. Whole/complete Input files should be attached (if applicable), rather than whole Log/Outputs. Make a good summary about your results: Specific & Concise. Follow the spirit described in the FAQ: FAQ1,FAQ2. Just a small, relevant portion (e.g. ending part) of Log/Output files could be cited.
   
2. If you still want to attach an output/log (as a whole), please compress with bzip2, gzip, zip etc. (NB: this is no effective for binary files, of course)
3. If you might have attachment over 500KByte, please stop attachment ! (Such large-sized e-mail is now automatically blocked for the distribution, to save Mail Servers in the world.)  Instead ...
• You might put your files to an anonymous ftp server. Our anonymous ftp site "ftp.abinit.org/pub/incoming" is available for this purpose.(NB: for the security reason, you must give the full path of your file for distribution. See the FAQ.)
• It will also be a good idea to have your WEB page. You can put your outputs (and images) FREELY on your home page. You could suggest by saying, "Please visit my homepage http://www.foo.foo/ for the details." Having your own WEB page may be more effective than posting your questions daily; we should remember, many posts may be overlooked in our ML inbox, once we have too heavy traffic on the MLs. For those who do not have your own web server, you may use our shared web page. The entrance (registration) is at the "Login" button on the page (upper left).
4. Please try feedback when you obtain suggestions/comments. Making a good summary will be welcome ! It will be reused as a part of the FAQ. In this way, we have chances to contribute to ABINIT.
5. Please remember, the MLs are not for so-called "user-support"; we should also recall, "Nobody is paid to give a service to the ABINIT community." Let us put aside the idea, "What can ABINIT/ABINITioners do for me (free-of-charge) ?" Let us think this way, "What can I do for ABINIT/ABINITioners ?" and try positive contributions. If you wonder why you do not have any responses, please read the FAQ. Please do not reiterate your questions just for the aim to draw our attentions; it would not be effective, because your e-mails might be filed/blocked as SPAM..