On Mon, Feb 22, 1999 at 01:04:04AM -0800, Nancy Charlton wrote:
> Emphatically, NO! This wastes everybody's time and bandwidth. Moreover, I
> have subscribers in Europe who have to pay local phone charges whenever
> they connect to the internet, so it costs them several ways. It's just not
> considerate of all users to post this way. How difficult can it be, after
> all, to take mouse in hand, highlight what's extraneous to the point to
> which you are replying, and dellete it?
Consider also the growing number of Internet users in third-world countries
which have abysmal telecommunications infrastructure and where bandwidth
is scarce and expensive.
> I know that people can learn these skills, but mark-eting emphasis on
> pretty visuals at the expense of fundamental writing and reading is
> deterring rather than enhancing real communication.
Bingo. If the goal is to enhance communication among readers and writers
on mailing lists, then the effort should applied toward providing
fundamental education in grammar, spelling, rhetoric, debate, comprehension,
and composition -- because that is where the problems are. Providing
readers/writers with fancy formatting[1] does not address these issues,
and in fact only obscures them by introducing additional complexity that
does not facilitate communication, but frequently impedes it.
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[1] I'd make an exception for support for additional character sets, based
on the arguments I've read here.
