• GoogleGroupsPython

Posting from Google Groups

In addition to reading the comp.lang.python newsgroup / python-list mailing list on Google Groups, it is also possible to post to the group/list from Google Groups.

However there are some problems you should be aware of before clicking the Post button.

1. Google groups may post your message twice.

• When you compose a new message or reply in Google Groups, you will sometimes see a checkbox above the post compose window that says:

  Cc: pytho...@python.org

  Please uncheck this box before sending! If you don't your message will be sent to both the Python list and the Python newsgroup and, since the two are gatewayed together (each receives a copy of anything sent to the other), everyone will see two copies of your post.

2. When you compose a reply to a message, Google Groups adds an excessive number of quoted blank lines.

• For example, if you reply to a message that already contains some quoted text like this:

  > When I changed it so that it said class Foo(object) it gave me
  >
  > a traceback error when printing out the results. Any ideas?
  >
  > The code is at http://somewhere/strange

  the quoted text that Google inserts into the post compose window and which you will see will look like this:

  >
  > > When I changed it so that it said class Foo(object) it gave me
  >
  > >
  >
  > > a traceback error when printing out the results. Any ideas?
  >
  > >
  >
  > > The code is at http://somewhere/strange
  >

  Every additional level of quoting results in Google Groups adding additional quoted blank lines. Reading a message formatted this way is annoying and many readers will simply ignore it.

  You should remove the excess quoted blank lines before posting. There are several way to do this.

  1. If the quoted text is short, just removed the excess quoted blank lines by hand. (Proper netiquette requires you to remove parts of the quoted text that aren't necessary for context anyway.)
  2. Open a New Mail Message compose window in your favorite email program. Then copy the text of the original message (not the screwed up quoted message in the Google Groups compose window) and use your email program's "Paste as quotation" function to paste into the email window. You can then copy and paste the properly quoted message back into the Google Groups post window.
  3. Do the same as above but with your favorite text editor program and use your editor's Replace function to add the quote markers yourself.
  What you should not do is not provide any quoted text at all -- in a moderate to high-volume group, context is very important to readers of your email who may have long since forgotten the message you are replying to.

3. Not all list readers may see your post.

• Because of the above problems, the amount of spam posted via Google Groups and other reasons, there are some regular and knowledgeable list participants that filter out and ignore posts made from Google Groups. It is not clear how many people do this, and most posters from Google Groups get good responses, but there are some. If you want every possible person to see your post, or you have not received any good answers (or possibly any answers) to your question, you may want to try posting to the list using one of the other methods described in

  CompLangPython.