Commit 329ac9af authored by Kees Cook's avatar Kees Cook Committed by Jonathan Corbet
Browse files

docs: submitting-patches: Discuss interleaved replies 



Top-posting has been strongly discouraged in Linux development, but this
was actually not written anywhere in the common documentation about
sending patches and replying to reviews. Add a section about trimming
and interleaved replies.

Acked-by: default avatarGreg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarKees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Reviewed-by: default avatarKrzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarJonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230511184131.gonna.399-kees@kernel.org
parent d6534e3c

Documentation/process/2.Process.rst

+4 −3
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -434,9 +434,10 @@ There are a few hints which can help with linux-kernel survival: 
  questions.  Some developers can get impatient with people who clearly

  have not done their homework.



- Avoid top-posting (the practice of putting your answer above the quoted

  text you are responding to).  It makes your response harder to read and

  makes a poor impression.

- Use interleaved ("inline") replies, which makes your response easier to

  read. (i.e. avoid top-posting -- the practice of putting your answer above

  the quoted text you are responding to.) For more details, see

  :ref:`Documentation/process/submittingpatches.rst <interleaved_replies>`.



- Ask on the correct mailing list.  Linux-kernel may be the general meeting

  point, but it is not the best place to find developers from all

Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst

+25 −0
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@@ -331,6 +331,31 @@ explaining difference against previous submission (see 
See Documentation/process/email-clients.rst for recommendations on email

clients and mailing list etiquette.



.. _interleaved_replies:



Use trimmed interleaved replies in email discussions

----------------------------------------------------

Top-posting is strongly discouraged in Linux kernel development

discussions. Interleaved (or "inline") replies make conversations much

easier to follow. For more details see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style



As is frequently quoted on the mailing list::



  A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post

  Q: Were do I find info about this thing called top-posting?

  A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.

  Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

  A: Top-posting.

  Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?



Similarly, please trim all unneeded quotations that aren't relevant

to your reply. This makes responses easier to find, and saves time and

space. For more details see: http://daringfireball.net/2007/07/on_top ::



  A: No.

  Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?



.. _resend_reminders:



Don't get discouraged - or impatient