* On 20 Jun 2015, Chuck Martin wrote: > On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 08:49:36PM +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > form. If it is the: > > > > "Ian> ..... > > Herbet> ... " > > > > form, than that's no harder than following a straight line. I've never > > heard of that being deprecated, though I've only encountered it rarely > > in list posts. > > Actually, that can be ambiguous. For example: > > Ian> ..... > Herbet> ... > Ian> ..... > Herbet> ...
Yes, this is one of my points in the (yes, flip) example I gave. Conventional SuperCite style gives only one level of quoting, which not only fails to provide appropriate context to a conversation that is several generations deep, but also *removes* such context when others have kept it. It destroys information that people have taken care to preserve. But trying to keep that by using multiple> layers> of> quoting> in SuperCite style gets unbearable in a text-only medium by making the quote indicators themselves a majority of the content. GNUS users have amended this situation by changing from full names, something like this: Ian> Herbet> Ian> Herbet> ... to initials only: >>> IZ == "Ian Zimmerman" >>> HA == "Herbet Andersen" IZ> HA> IZ> HA> ... This is a little less ridiculous but still a bit of a chore to read. But regardless, the truth remains that how we quote email is a train that's been accelerating for decades. Turning it around now means fighting a lot of inertia, and it's not going to get done on this mailing list. That was my other point. -- David Champion • d...@bikeshed.us
