Gambler wrote:People, you just keep inventing new netiquette rules, don't you?
First, notice that foobar did include a link to a relevant topic elsewhere - helping the OP (and others) to focus conversation in one place, instead of having the same points brought up twice. Put another way, it wasn't just a snide comment.
Second, it was not only a valid comment, it was neither snide nor unreasonable.
But I'll answer your question/comment directly: Yes, as time goes on, new etiquette does develop. In this particular case, the netiquette rule in question has been around for over 20 years - since the early days of net news and newsgroups. Here's a link that covers it nicely:
http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html
"Cross-Posting" refers to posting a message to more than one group. If you introduce Cross-Posting to a group, or if you direct "Followup-To:" in the header of your posting, warn readers!
Many of the people on these forums visit other forums - sitepoint is a common example, so is devshed. When visiting multiple forums, you will easily start asking yourself "Didn't I just answer that?", and with cross-posting, you might have!
The forums are here to educate people. To increase the signal, and decrease the noise. The reason these forums
are valuable is because they do so. By informing new users of common issues (register_globals, undefined variable, netiquette), we (the users) improve the overall level of questions.
Or put another way, you like being here
because the users here encourage better behavior, and as a result, have better, more intelligent users posting.
I do understand the frustration, but going beyond the comfort zone of "zomg, I cnt f1gur out d code", to the level of knowing the right questions to ask, in the right way, on the right forum can be a positive growth experience - and definitely helps everyone by making discussions more intelligent.
Don't discourage positive messages that seek to improve the quality of discussions, please.