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 questions. Some developers can get impatient with people who clearly
have not done their homework. have not done their homework.
- Avoid top-posting (the practice of putting your answer above the quoted - Use interleaved ("inline") replies, which makes your response easier to
text you are responding to). It makes your response harder to read and read. (i.e. avoid top-posting -- the practice of putting your answer above
makes a poor impression. 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 - 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 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 See Documentation/process/email-clients.rst for recommendations on email
clients and mailing list etiquette. 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: .. _resend_reminders:
Don't get discouraged - or impatient Don't get discouraged - or impatient