6.2. Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Email lists can be highly efficient, but their use can also drag people into activities that waste a lot of time. This is sometimes because postings are spread over time, and nobody really pays attention to whether the postings contribute to the purpose of the list. In any case, certain subtle patterns of disfunctioning have been observed over and over.

6.2.1. Don't Post Without a Purpose

A common pitfall in online project participation is to think that you have to respond to everything. You don't. First of all, there will usually be more threads going on than you can keep track of, at least after the project is past its first few months. Second, even in the threads that you have decided to engage in, much of what people say will not require a response. Development forums in particular tend to be dominated by three kinds of messages: