* Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [010513]:
> At 9:41 PM -0700 5/13/01, Ryan Sorensen wrote:
> >So I get this idea.
> >Crypto is great for lots of things, but anonymous public postings it's not.
> >I know this has been discussed here before, but I haven't seen specifics.
> >
> >
> >What exactly makes a person's writing style distinctive?
> >
> >Is it distinctive phrases?
> >Number of syllables?
> >
> >And almost the inverse, how would you come up with a "generic" writing style?
> >
> >Any help is appreciated.
> >Including pointers to online resources or past discussions, if they
> >have any specifics.
>
> Think in terms of how _you_ would try to identify similar styles.
>
> -- British or foreign usages
>
> -- type of emphasis indicators (like _this_ or like *this* or like....)
>
> -- use of ellipses, em dashes, etc.
>
> -- vocabulary, phrases
>
I didn't want to have to come up with my own list if someone had done work
before me.
Other ones I was thinking of were the number of syllables used in words,
length of paragraphs, number of times sentences are "split" and go on their
way towards run on sentences. These would be in addition to the ones listed
by Jim Windle. (Thanks Jim!)
<snipped>
> Will frequent posters to this and other mailing lists have specific
> posts fall into correlation "bins"? You tell us.
On this list? It's hard to say. I haven't been actively paying attention to
the way people write here for long enough.
There are other lists, in particular dc-stuff, where people give long
passages with enough idiosyncrasies to give me the gut feeling that they
could be categorized at least.
I will of course report more as I begin to actually run some statistical
tests against the posts.
>
> ** Tim May
> --
> Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED] Corralitos, California
> Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
> Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
> Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
>
Is it common on mailing lists to adress people by first name?
I know I see this sort of behavior on mailing lists between regulars, but
I'm not quite sure of how it works with people new to posting on said lists.
And Tim, this was the question I was asking you earlier. I notice now it may
have been misconstrued as a poor jab regarding the recent "Timmy" thing.
--Ryan Sorensen
