On 2012-11-30, Rich Kulawiec <r...@gsp.org> wrote: > > I have heard myriad arguments advanced for abandoning or modifying > email etiquette over the past ten, twenty, thirty years. None of > them have ever been accompanied by a convincing rationale that > demonstrates why the proposed changes are substantive improvements > that quantitatively and qualitatively improve the use of email as a > communications medium.
Failing to be convinced can be due to meritless claims, or it can be well-grounded claims that are given to a stubborn opponent who resists change. When an argument is irrefuted, or refuted purely with fallacious logic, it's certainly the the latter case. And this is what has been demonstrated here. It gets interesting when both sides are using sound logic (which is absolutely possible). But when one side has only made illogical statements, they lost whether they realise it or not, at which point refusing to accept the loss is merely another different kind of lapse in competency. > Nearly all of them have been proposed by people of limited and brief > experience, people without substantial experience in large and > diverse environments, people who do not understand how email > actually works, people who do not grasp the scalability issues > involved, people who have never read the RFCs, people who have never > used more than one email client or operating system, people who make > the serious mistake of reading their email with a web browser, This is a false cause fallacy. Advocates on either side could make this same errors in judgement, by speculating the above mentioned incompetencies are working on their opponent as a result of a perceived foolish thesis. You would first have to establish the attributes above *before* taking into account the opposing stance. The opposite direction does not work for anything other than a failed attempt at character assasination. > people who simply want to do what they want to do because their > world view is myopic and selfish, Actually it's quite the contrary. Now before going into that, first you should understand a proper tool can make composition equally simple, regardless of wrapping style. So it's a bogus point from the standpoint of good quality tooling. Now, if we consider lousy tools (tools that either fail to facilitate standards or needlessly impose extra work on humans), then it can only be the contrary of what you're saying. "Selfish" authors do what is convenient for /themselves/, not the reader. Wrapped text is *easier* to write because the author must also read the text as they compose it. Wrapping it during composition and then shipping it as-is is therefore a selfish act. And when dealing with lousy tools, unwrapped text is *more difficult* to compose, because as it's written the tool is not making it easy for the author to read their own message. > people who have never bothered to learn and understand proper email > etiquette, Etiquette varies based on the domain (e.g. where you are). There is not one single etiquette for the universe. In Japan, tipping is often regarded as extremely offensive. In the US, tipping is often expected. Someone here also tried claiming that there is one single global etiquette for the world. They attempted to claim that whatever etiquette is first established is the correct one to impose on everyone. Yet Americans do not abolish tipping simply because Japan's tipping etiquette pre-dates theirs. > We of course see these same people top-posting, full-quoting, > sending email marked up with HTML, failing to wrap their lines, > carelessly sending mailing list followups both on-list and off-list, > and engaging in similar rude, lazy, impolite, stupid and completely > unprofessional behavior. Of course it would be a fallacy to try to group "evil ideas" together, and pin them on the opposition (who may just as well oppose these approaches). The need for such a maneuver would clearly spotlight the overall weakness in ones thesis. > What we do not see are any of them advancing cogent, carefully-made > arguments for change. That is NOT to say such arguments don't exist: > perhaps they do. Perhaps there are changes that *should* be made. Then you have not been paying attention. The point was already made on this list just a few days ago to use an unambiguous syntax that gives each reader the freedom to choose how wide their text is (as opposed to being force-fed the authors choice), and this point remains irrefuted. Detail on how to completely remove all traces of ambiguity was given, and so far uncountered. > But 100% of the onus for demonstrating that in a compelling fashion, > including a full explanation of how such changes will make email > better AND a careful examination of the drawbacks to such proposed > changes, rests with those advocating for change. Simply put, they > must prove it or admit that they cannot make the case. The case has been made. At this point we're still waiting for someone to effectively refute what was presented. > In this particular case, for instance, those advocating a change > from the useful courtesy of sane line-wrap MUST provide a full > justification for that. They must show how it's an improvement, not > merely something that *should* be done because it *can* be done. > They must fully enumerate all of the consequences of such a change, You've obviously missed a significant portion of the debate. Copious detail has been presented on consequences with regard to various scenarios (content-wise: poetry, source code, tables; use-case-wise: reading from a smartphone, reading from a laptop display, desktop display, etc). > Some people will decline to do that, which is fine. But such a > refusal is of course a full public admission that they've failed to > make the case and thus that even they, themselves, admit that their > suggestion has absolutely no merit whatsoever. > > Far more briefly: prove it. The argments have been made over the past couple weeks, still waiting for a worthy, direct challenge. Now go knock 'em down. (BTW, and when you do so, please quote each point and put your corresponding counter claim underneath the quoted text- thanks).
