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: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Reviewed-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230511184131.gonna.399-kees@kernel.org
This commit is contained in:
Kees Cook 2023-05-11 11:41:35 -07:00 committed by Jonathan Corbet
parent d6534e3c86
commit 329ac9af90
2 changed files with 29 additions and 3 deletions

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@ -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

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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