Re: top post fixer?
On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 02:28:24 -0500 Steve C. Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Define most. In all of the email clients I have ever chosen to use not a single one exhibits the behavior you describe. Pine, elm, mutt, PMMail/2, PMMail2000, TheBat, Sylpheed-Claws, Thunderbird just to name most. Pretty Agreed. In fact, when I first started using email at work, we had to use Outlook. I was surprised to find that it didn't quote the way I wanted it to, and I had to physically move things around to make the email look they way that I was accustomed to it looking (i.e., bottom-post, or quotes interspersed with new text style), and not the way it looked like by default. It does seem to be unique to Outlook. Curiously, it's not that way on the Microsoft editors, even if Outlook is a Microsoft product. I mean, composing email is in many respects a similar (if maybe a specialized) use of that must basic of computer uses, text editing aka word processing. And if you think of that, you don't normally edit a pre-existing document by typing in new text at the beginning of the document, you start at the point you left off. Would you (on a typewriter) start adding to an existing docueent by positioning the (used) paper at the beginning, and just type? :) -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- -- David E. Fox Thanks for letting me [EMAIL PROTECTED]change magnetic patterns [EMAIL PROTECTED] on your hard disk. --- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Kamaraju Kusumanchi [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Wow! Nice explanation. I have always liked white on black xterms and never was able to explain why so. Glad to hear that there is a logical reason behind all this Yeah, it will be nice in the future when we have better display technologies -- I sort of like the _idea_ of black-on-white (typical ink-on-paper, after all, is just great), but in practice, on CRTs, I simply feel blinded by massive areas of glowing white... LCDs are a bit better than CRTs but still not really there. -miles -- In New York, most people don't have cars, so if you want to kill a person, you have to take the subway to their house. And sometimes on the way, the train is delayed and you get impatient, so you have to kill someone on the subway. [George Carlin] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 09:27:07PM -0500, Steve C. Lamb wrote: On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 08:57:07PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: Personally, I feel this hardcoding of colors in the application is a downside of X. One of the few visual things I miss from OS/2. There I had my apps set to white on black and they all behaved properly. Colors were set in the OS' configuration not the application's. The apps could override, obviously, but their default was the OS' settings. Combine that with a quick way to switch color schemes (which OS/2 had) and you could easily have your desire for different color schemes based on the lighting conditions you were operating under. I spent a year camping, with a laptop. I created several config files for different apps (e.g. lynx, dialog) so I could specify 'day' or 'night'. Ditto with setterm. I find white on black difficult to read if there's light behind me due to reflections competing with the letters. In that case, 'day', black on white worked better. At night, I liked amber on black and used that. So I had scripts 'day' and 'night'. Log in, type 'day' or 'night' and I got the environment I liked. For X, I had an icon for a 'day' term and one for 'night'. Then again, 95% of my time I spend out of X. I was very pleased with this setup until my tent got hit by lightening with me (and the laptop) in it. Now my laptop is very much 'night': black on black and perfectly silent :-) Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Dave Sherohman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I suspect it's because Gnome and KDE seem to think that looks like Windows is the best interface design and Windows uses black-on-white, It does? I'm pretty sure I've only seen white-on-black command-line windows in Windows. Can't ever remember seeing a black-on-white window. OTOH, I usually see black-on-white on *nix systems (Solaris, HP-UX, now KDE and GNOME) as the default state. -- John L. Fjellstad web: http://www.fjellstad.org/ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
John L Fjellstad wrote: It does? I'm pretty sure I've only seen white-on-black command-line windows in Windows. Can't ever remember seeing a black-on-white window. I think he's not talking about the DOS prompt, but applications like word processors, spreadsheets and the like. -- FORZA VECCHIO CUORE BIANCOROSSO! 1905 - 2005 (+2)... la storia continua ---=== Powered by Debian GNU/Linux ===--- (registered Linux user #297134) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 09:27:07PM -0500, Steve C. Lamb wrote: On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 08:57:07PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: Personally, I feel this hardcoding of colors in the application is a downside of X. One of the few visual things I miss from OS/2. There I had my apps set to white on black and they all behaved properly. Colors were set in the OS' configuration not the application's. The apps could override, obviously, but their default was the OS' settings. Combine that with a quick way to switch color schemes (which OS/2 had) and you could easily have your desire for different color schemes based on the lighting conditions you were operating under. That is, I believe, what X resources are for. Does everyone ignore them? -- hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 02:41:21PM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: I wonder why gnome, kde chose to have white on black background as defaults in konsole, gnome-terminal etc., Are those developers so reflective than being projective? :-) I suspect it's because Gnome and KDE seem to think that looks like Windows is the best interface design and Windows uses black-on-white, which, in turn, I assume is part of Microsoft's attempts to make people feel more comfortable with computers by (at least nominally) making things on the screen look like things in the real world, such as paper. Oh, and to the person who originally brought this up and said he couldn't find white pens, I worked for a guy a few years back who kept a stack of black post-its on his desk along with a white pencil. Very nice, but I never thought to ask where he got them. (This message written in an xterm with a 50% transparent background over a medium-grey rhino-skin desktop and white text.) -- I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 09:24:52PM -0500, Steve C. Lamb wrote: On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 03:17:17AM +0100, Wim De Smet wrote: One of the reasons I prefer dark on light is the excessive use of blue in ls output (which I tend to use a lot). So... change it. LS_COLORS controls what colors ls use. Or alias ls to 'ls -p'/change $LS_OPTIONS from '--color=auto' to '-p' in ~/.bashrc. It gives you most (all?) of the same information as the color-coding while leaving the ls output the same color as your normal text. If I'm not mistaken eye doctors will generally advise anyone with problems reading text to use a light-on-dark scheme because of the better contrast. And I'm betting most aren't taking into account the projective nature of monitors and are just defaulting to the same it's more like paper line of reasoning. Actually, he said eye doctors recommend light-on-dark to those with problems, which is not more like paper... -- I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: top post fixer?
On 1/23/07, Dave Sherohman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 11:55:32AM -0500, celejar wrote: On 1/22/07, Dave Sherohman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 10:25:23AM -0600, John C wrote: I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson By the way, I do love the quote. :-) So did I, as soon as I saw it. There are a lot of similarly great quotes from Jefferson and his friends, but this is one of the few that I can fit into a 4-line .sig. :) I would respectfully differ. This sort of thing is stirring but somewhat content-free. I won't disagree with you. Many (most?) of the other great quotes I mentioned earlier are much better and I'd rather use them. But that this one (and the Franklin quote you mentioned) have the deciding advantage that they can be crammed into a four-line-by-70ish-column signature, while those with real meat to them are too large for that. I confess that I am rather leery of Jefferson's almost unbalanced extremism as manifested in his over-the-top support for the French Revolution, as in the notorious Adam and Eve quote [0]. Celejar [0] http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/592/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
It's kinda like a religious fanaticism... everyone should act and believe like I do. And yes, you're absolutely right - there is too much bile being spewed at top posters. So which is best, top posting or bottom posting? Who knows? Who ^%^% cares? I certainly don't. On this list however, I normally bottom post primarily because a good deal of the folks on Debian User (many of them extremely helpful members) seem to have a problem following the thread if it's top posted. Or at least it seems that way. :) This argument reminds me of the fuss over xterm backgrounds many years ago. The fanatics insisted that the background should be black and the text white because that was the natural way to view a computer screen. It was the way that it would always remain. Of course, when I went to my office supply store and tried to buy some black paper and white ink they thought I was crazy. I notice that the Gnome terminal now defaults to black on white. Now if I could only figure out how to post sideways ;-) John Francis Healy wrote: I'm dodging the bile being spewed at top posters. Bottom line, top posting is not evil. Scrool down if you want to read the original message. */Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED]/* wrote: John C wrote: I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson If you really believe this quote, why do you insist that bottom posting is the only correct way to go? Because the top-posters are willing to exchange liberty to top post for liberty to have an audience? Absolutely! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: top post fixer?
Celejar writes: I confess that I am rather leery of Jefferson's almost unbalanced extremism as manifested in his over-the-top support for the French Revolution, as in the notorious Adam and Eve quote [0]. Seems pretty reasonable to me, in the context of the times. -- John Hasler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 10:41:02AM -0600, John C wrote: It's kinda like a religious fanaticism... everyone should act and believe like I do. And yes, you're absolutely right - there is too much bile being spewed at top posters. So which is best, top posting or bottom posting? Who knows? Who ^%^% cares? I certainly don't. On this list however, I normally bottom post primarily because a good deal of the folks on Debian User (many of them extremely helpful members) seem to have a problem following the thread if it's top posted. Or at least it seems that way. :) This argument reminds me of the fuss over xterm backgrounds many years ago. The fanatics insisted that the background should be black and the text white because that was the natural way to view a computer screen. It was the way that it would always remain. Of course, when I went to my office supply store and tried to buy some black paper and white ink they thought I was crazy. I notice that the Gnome terminal now defaults to black on white. Now if I could only figure out how to post sideways ;-) John e k e o y n y h r c . r h l a n t e a e t e W l i a t , l t c h a b m d u e b i a t ? m e a n p s h s r D s a m r e w d - w o e d o u m l o n n v n k c o o n u t n o a u c c s o o h k I h o a a ) h g s r l f y k - s i o , k o g b w O u c ; r h r l t k e b a e W e o c e i . l s n y v f m a b v n o b y o l e e b i t a y e ? w e e . d o a o w r t g o h s d m l t m d t e e u n h t e r u e e d v l . i ) t e o y r i . s i e o s t t f s s t h a r y t s s r s s o r o x s w s t z l b e o i e p y a u t . a t p l l b r d a d r a s . s a m p e n l w n c f o . e o m s e e o v u a l a e p m r p o i d m t o o r a s d s ' t h r u e a o i u p t t d l s s g t d r w w t c o o o o u ' s k a l o o i y t b n o f t u c n u t I n w t O g p i ) f a o s o a , t r l : b w t l h n s a o . a e f e e y h a a e t h i . h e h t l g n t f y d g ' e y t h t i p u i u e n n s y d a t p o m o s d w i o u l a w f s t u h r u n e t d a e e o t a a s t e e o A p s c m r t a w h t r i s o y e e h a e h t e y u g . p l b r t h m t t c e e g i g n t t a y i h m i l o n p i y x e s d h a f t o f e d i o a l e h s d e t w f n r e t t i t m n t o k G y I b r r m e i s e e n l a , e a e g e m i s h y i e n e e t c m h n s e s u t m h o e k l s i t i r n a e t k i i e I r w t i c s o t d i l b b p f o i t e a t i t l l ? o l n s b w h a u e h s s t l t e c t w h o a v c i e s y o s m . i e t n t c d e u r o n f a u o t t I e d n i m h a p a e g g a i w n e I i l c c m m l r a n h . a c k e o i m ( e a a w n I i f b o h % o l t s f e r t i s t w ^ t r b a s r t e n e o n ' d % t e o i a e x r e p n w h t n s o ^ o s r r h e h e c h
Re: top post fixer?
John C wrote: It's kinda like a religious fanaticism... everyone should act and believe like I do. And yes, you're absolutely right - there is too much bile being spewed at top posters. No, it's not. It's called a convention for communicating with one another. Do you call it religious fanaticism that everyone is taught the language of the location they were born? I certainly don't, I called it an education. Simply put top-posting marks the poster as uneducated in how to communicate online, period. The fanatics insisted that the background should be black and the text white because that was the natural way to view a computer screen. It was the way that it would always remain. Of course, when I went to my office supply store and tried to buy some black paper and white ink they thought I was crazy. Of course they are. I would, too. Now to explain *your* ignorance. Paper is REFLECTIVE. Monitors are PROJECTIVE. What's that mean? It means that paper REFLECTS the light that hits it. Without an outside source of light you wouldn't see jack on paper. However a monitor PROJECTS light. In the absence of all other light you would still see a text on the monitor. Don't believe me, wait until midnight, take a piece of paper, go into a room with a monitor, open up your black-on-white terminal and turn off all other lights, windows, doors, etc and you'll notice 2 things. 1: The BLINDING WHITE BACKGROUND ON THE MONITOR PREVENTS YOU FROM BEING VERY PRODUCTIVE AND... 2: the paper ain't projecting much but sure reflects the the light of the monitor. White on black is visible both in high light and low light situations without being blinding. The reverse is not true. It is because of the projective nature of monitors. So, again, it isn't a religious debate. Religious debates are ones of lunacy. This one, and the one about posting, are based on facts. Scientific, to be sure, debatable definitely, but not religious. Only the religious ignore the FACTS. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Wednesday 24 January 2007 14:03, Steve Lamb wrote: The fanatics insisted that the background should be black and the text white because that was the natural way to view a computer screen. It was the way that it would always remain. Of course, when I went to my office supply store and tried to buy some black paper and white ink they thought I was crazy. Of course they are. I would, too. Now to explain *your* ignorance. Paper is REFLECTIVE. Monitors are PROJECTIVE. What's that mean? It means that paper REFLECTS the light that hits it. Without an outside source of light you wouldn't see jack on paper. However a monitor PROJECTS light. In the absence of all other light you would still see a text on the monitor. Wow! Nice explanation. I have always liked white on black xterms and never was able to explain why so. Glad to hear that there is a logical reason behind all this. If this is so, I wonder why gnome, kde chose to have white on black background as defaults in konsole, gnome-terminal etc., Are those developers so reflective than being projective? :-) raju -- Kamaraju S Kusumanchi http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/ http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/ -- Click to compare save $100's on life insurance, free quote http://tags.bluebottle.com/fc/CAaCMPJkoHmPFyOi4TALHuwhx0dNXqUM/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Francis Healy wrote: I'm dodging the bile being spewed at top posters. Bottom line, top posting is not evil. Scrool down if you want to read the original message. Just because you do it among your limited circle of friends and coworkers doesn't mean it's acceptable in a public environment. http://wiki.ursine.ca/Best_Online_Quoting_Practices#But_within_my_.28very_limited.2C_closed.29_group_of_colleagues_or_friends_top_post_among_each_other_all_the_time.21 BTW, you might want to read the Debian list guidelines; CCs are prohibited. We get the list, we don't need CCs, use reply to list (NOT reply to all) or read the list on Gmane at nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.user instead. http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct If you can't follow basic guidelines, perhaps public forums aren't for you. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: top post fixer?
On 1/24/07, John Hasler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Celejar writes: I confess that I am rather leery of Jefferson's almost unbalanced extremism as manifested in his over-the-top support for the French Revolution, as in the notorious Adam and Eve quote [0]. Seems pretty reasonable to me, in the context of the times. -- John Hasler To support revolution, certainly. To support the level of bloodthirstiness and savagery that the Revolution became, no. Celejar -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 11:03:55AM -0800, Steve Lamb wrote: John C wrote: It's kinda like a religious fanaticism... everyone should act and believe like I do. And yes, you're absolutely right - there is too much bile being spewed at top posters. No, it's not. It's called a convention for communicating with one another. Do you call it religious fanaticism that everyone is taught the language of the location they were born? I certainly don't, I called it an education. Simply put top-posting marks the poster as uneducated in how to communicate online, period. The fanatics insisted that the background should be black and the text white because that was the natural way to view a computer screen. It was the way that it would always remain. Of course, when I went to my office supply store and tried to buy some black paper and white ink they thought I was crazy. Of course they are. I would, too. Now to explain *your* ignorance. Paper is REFLECTIVE. Monitors are PROJECTIVE. What's that mean? It means that paper REFLECTS the light that hits it. Without an outside source of light you wouldn't see jack on paper. However a monitor PROJECTS light. In the absence of all other light you would still see a text on the monitor. Don't believe me, wait until midnight, take a piece of paper, go into a room with a monitor, open up your black-on-white terminal and turn off all other lights, windows, doors, etc and you'll notice 2 things. 1: The BLINDING WHITE BACKGROUND ON THE MONITOR PREVENTS YOU FROM BEING VERY PRODUCTIVE AND... If your monitor is slightly out of focus, the white background bleeds into the letter, making them spindly and hard to read. Not to mention that, if the monitor doesn't have a high renough refresh rate, having it mostly white will exacerbate any flicker to the point of migrain headaches. 2: the paper ain't projecting much but sure reflects the the light of the monitor. White on black is visible both in high light and low light situations without being blinding. The reverse is not true. It is because of the projective nature of monitors. So, again, it isn't a religious debate. Religious debates are ones of lunacy. This one, and the one about posting, are based on facts. Scientific, to be sure, debatable definitely, but not religious. Only the religious ignore the FACTS. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Steve Lamb wrote: John C wrote: It's kinda like a religious fanaticism... everyone should act and believe like I do. And yes, you're absolutely right - there is too much bile being spewed at top posters. No, it's not. It's called a convention for communicating with one another. Do you call it religious fanaticism that everyone is taught the language of the location they were born? I certainly don't, I called it an education. Simply put top-posting marks the poster as uneducated in how to communicate online, period. Wow! and you don't think that's fanaticism?? :-) cut I'll just cut out the so-called facts over which you and I will never agree. (I've heard them all before-thank you) Let's just say that I never use a computer in a pitch black room, it's always well lighted. snip The point of this discussion is that users are being turned off by the insistence that they should only post in the manner that the educated think they should - bottom posting only please. There are valid reason to correct posters that use html, long lines, attachments, etc. All are violations of the code of conduct for the Debian mailing lists - Top posting is not. Correcting someone who happens to top-post on this list is nothing other than imposing the personal preference of the individual doing the correcting. If it's the will of all of us, put in the the code of conduct. Until then let's just drop the subject and quit correcting users, it's getting dangerously close to the definition of a flame war :-) break break Kind of related. My apologies to Francis and Paul for accidentally CCing them on my earlier posting - that *is* a violation of the code of conduct. John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: top post fixer?
Celejar writes: I confess that I am rather leery of Jefferson's almost unbalanced extremism as manifested in his over-the-top support for the French Revolution, as in the notorious Adam and Eve quote [0]. I wrote: Seems pretty reasonable to me, in the context of the times. Celejar writes: To support revolution, certainly. To support the level of bloodthirstiness and savagery that the Revolution became, no. I don't read the letter as doing so. -- John Hasler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
John C wrote: It's kinda like a religious fanaticism... everyone should act and believe like I do. And yes, you're absolutely right - there is too much bile being spewed at top posters. So which is best, top posting or bottom posting? Who knows? Who ^%^% cares? Anybody with a limited amount of attention or bandwidth. Bottom posting is just as bad as top posting. Conversational order and trimming is the key, failing to do so is bloody rude. http://wiki.ursine.ca/Best_Online_Quoting_Practices#Why_bottom-posting_also_isn.27t_the_answer I certainly don't. On this list however, I normally bottom post primarily because a good deal of the folks on Debian User (many of them extremely helpful members) seem to have a problem following the thread if it's top posted. Probably because top posting destroys context and makes high volumes of messages difficult to manage. Blaming your laziness on your audience is bad form. Then again, so is violating the list rules by CCing people instead of using reply to list, and we can plainly see how much you cared about that. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 03:43:26PM -0600, John C wrote: Wow! and you don't think that's fanaticism?? :-) Nope. Want to know what I call fanaticism? cut I'll just cut out the so-called facts over which you and I will never agree. (I've heard them all before-thank you) Don't bother me with facts, that is fanaticism. When one is presented with evidence and facts contrary to one's position and discards the facts instead of their position. Given what you just said above I'd say that's you, not me. Let's just say that I never use a computer in a pitch black room, it's always well lighted. Bully for you. And you're the only computer user on the planet? Defaults exist to work resonibly well in a large number of situations, not be ideal for each individual user. The ideal is impossible which is why things are configurable. Given that white on black works in most situations where black on white does not that means the former should be the default and the latter left to the preference of those who have different needs outside the norm. The point of this discussion is that users are being turned off by the insistence that they should only post in the manner that the educated think they should - bottom posting only please. As many of us have pointed out, bottom posting is no better than top posting. Interleaving is the correct standard. And as I said before, learning how to communicate is part of being educated guess what that means when you post in an unconventional manner. You come off as uneducated. This is no different than when people hear other people speaking in several dialects around the world that marks one self as an uneducated individual. Be ie Ebonics, Redneck, Cockney or any other regional variety of a language. Considering interleaving posting has existed since the early-to-mid 80s and top-posting only came en voque sometime in the late 90s guess which one is the guttersnipe dialect of the internet. Correcting someone who happens to top-post on this list is nothing other than imposing the personal preference of the individual doing the correcting. Incorrect. It is pointing out that if they want to speak in public they had best learn how to speak PROPERLY. I mean how many people think Bush is an idiot because of how he speaks publicly? No different. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
John C [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Lamb wrote: John C wrote: It's kinda like a religious fanaticism... everyone should act and believe like I do. And yes, you're absolutely right - there is too much bile being spewed at top posters. No, it's not. It's called a convention for communicating with one another. Do you call it religious fanaticism that everyone is taught the language of the location they were born? I certainly don't, I called it an education. Simply put top-posting marks the poster as uneducated in how to communicate online, period. Wow! and you don't think that's fanaticism?? :-) I'll just cut out the so-called facts over which you and I will never agree. (I've heard them all before-thank you) Let's just say that I never use a computer in a pitch black room, it's always well lighted. The point of this discussion is that users are being turned off by the insistence that they should only post in the manner that the educated think they should - bottom posting only please. There are valid reason to correct posters that use html, long lines, attachments, etc. All are violations of the code of conduct for the Debian mailing lists - Top posting is not. Correcting someone who happens to top-post on this list is nothing other than imposing the personal preference of the individual doing the correcting. If it's the will of all of us, put in the the code of conduct. Until then let's just drop the subject and quit correcting users, it's getting dangerously close to the definition of a flame war :-) Kind of related. My apologies to Francis and Paul for accidentally CCing them on my earlier posting - that *is* a violation of the code of conduct. John That's OK by me John. I just want to get back to hearing about Debian. I use computers and Debian as part of my job, but I also use Debian sysems as my hobby. I mostly read the lists to pick up usefull information, and I'm glad when I see something I know how to solve. And I dont get the insistence on bottom posting. When I am checking my e-mail (lots of e-mail by the way) I want to see the current reply and don't mind scrolling down if I need to read the original post. I also at times (most of the time) use a crappy webmail interface that does some of the bad stuff by default.
Re: top post fixer?
Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: Paper is REFLECTIVE. Monitors are PROJECTIVE. What's that mean? It means that paper REFLECTS the light that hits it. Without an outside source of light you wouldn't see jack on paper. However a monitor PROJECTS light. In the absence of all other light you would still see a text on the monitor. Wow! Nice explanation. I have always liked white on black xterms and never was able to explain why so. Glad to hear that there is a logical reason behind all this. However, in some situations, LCDs are not particularly light emitting. For example, if using a laptop in direct sunlight, even with a pretty good LCD, black on white will tend to be more readable. Personally, I feel this hardcoding of colors in the application is a downside of X. An ideal system for me would be able to adapt the primary foreground and background colors, so that I could switch from the white on black I prefer outdoors, to the black on white I sometimes need outdoors, to the red on black I prefer when I'm outside at night and want to use the computer with a starry background. -- see shy jo signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
On 1/24/07, Steve Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John C wrote: It's kinda like a religious fanaticism... everyone should act and believe like I do. And yes, you're absolutely right - there is too much bile being spewed at top posters. No, it's not. It's called a convention for communicating with one another. Do you call it religious fanaticism that everyone is taught the language of the location they were born? I certainly don't, I called it an education. Simply put top-posting marks the poster as uneducated in how to communicate online, period. The fanatics insisted that the background should be black and the text white because that was the natural way to view a computer screen. It was the way that it would always remain. Of course, when I went to my office supply store and tried to buy some black paper and white ink they thought I was crazy. Of course they are. I would, too. Now to explain *your* ignorance. Paper is REFLECTIVE. Monitors are PROJECTIVE. What's that mean? It means that paper REFLECTS the light that hits it. Without an outside source of light you wouldn't see jack on paper. However a monitor PROJECTS light. In the absence of all other light you would still see a text on the monitor. Don't believe me, wait until midnight, take a piece of paper, go into a room with a monitor, open up your black-on-white terminal and turn off all other lights, windows, doors, etc and you'll notice 2 things. 1: The BLINDING WHITE BACKGROUND ON THE MONITOR PREVENTS YOU FROM BEING VERY PRODUCTIVE AND... 2: the paper ain't projecting much but sure reflects the the light of the monitor. White on black is visible both in high light and low light situations without being blinding. The reverse is not true. It is because of the projective nature of monitors. So, again, it isn't a religious debate. Religious debates are ones of lunacy. This one, and the one about posting, are based on facts. Scientific, to be sure, debatable definitely, but not religious. Only the religious ignore the FACTS. Then again, contrast is higher with light-on-dark sometimes increasing eye strain. If your whites are blinding you you might just want to adjust your monitor brightness and/or contrast. I personally prefer dark-on-white terminals but then it's not just the colours, it's also a function of the fonts used (weight of the font, is it anti-aliased or not, etc.) One of the reasons I prefer dark on light is the excessive use of blue in ls output (which I tend to use a lot). Blue doesn't contrast well with black. That's the other side of the argument. Though you have a lot of good points. If I'm not mistaken eye doctors will generally advise anyone with problems reading text to use a light-on-dark scheme because of the better contrast. greets, Wim -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 03:17:17AM +0100, Wim De Smet wrote: Then again, contrast is higher with light-on-dark sometimes increasing eye strain. If your whites are blinding you you might just want to adjust your monitor brightness and/or contrast. Which results in me constantly adjusting the monitor for high and low light situations. Something I need not do with white on black. I personally prefer dark-on-white terminals Actually lately my preference has been for black-on-medium-grey, something I'm sure most other people would find abhorrant. Certainly not something I would advocate as default as it is clearly my preference. One of the reasons I prefer dark on light is the excessive use of blue in ls output (which I tend to use a lot). So... change it. LS_COLORS controls what colors ls use. If I'm not mistaken eye doctors will generally advise anyone with problems reading text to use a light-on-dark scheme because of the better contrast. And I'm betting most aren't taking into account the projective nature of monitors and are just defaulting to the same it's more like paper line of reasoning. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 08:57:07PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: Personally, I feel this hardcoding of colors in the application is a downside of X. One of the few visual things I miss from OS/2. There I had my apps set to white on black and they all behaved properly. Colors were set in the OS' configuration not the application's. The apps could override, obviously, but their default was the OS' settings. Combine that with a quick way to switch color schemes (which OS/2 had) and you could easily have your desire for different color schemes based on the lighting conditions you were operating under. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [OT] Re: top post fixer?
On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 11:55:32AM -0500, celejar wrote: On 1/22/07, Dave Sherohman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 10:25:23AM -0600, John C wrote: I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson By the way, I do love the quote. :-) So did I, as soon as I saw it. There are a lot of similarly great quotes from Jefferson and his friends, but this is one of the few that I can fit into a 4-line .sig. :) I would respectfully differ. This sort of thing is stirring but somewhat content-free. I won't disagree with you. Many (most?) of the other great quotes I mentioned earlier are much better and I'd rather use them. But that this one (and the Franklin quote you mentioned) have the deciding advantage that they can be crammed into a four-line-by-70ish-column signature, while those with real meat to them are too large for that. -- I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
John C wrote: I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson If you really believe this quote, why do you insist that bottom posting is the only correct way to go? Because the top-posters are willing to exchange liberty to top post for liberty to have an audience? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
I'm dodging the bile being spewed at top posters. Bottom line, top posting is not evil. Scrool down if you want to read the original message. Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John C wrote: I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson If you really believe this quote, why do you insist that bottom posting is the only correct way to go? Because the top-posters are willing to exchange liberty to top post for liberty to have an audience? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On 1/18/07, Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. - --- HEADER BLANK_LINE TOP_POST BLANK_LINE MESSAGE SIG - --- into - --- HEADER BLANK_LINE MESSAGE BLANK_LINE TOP_POST SIG - -- would it be possible to 'classify' posts and fix them? (top post,interspersed post,bottom post) if possible, would there be a down-side? anyone with hair-brainded ideas welcome :-) cheers, Kev Maybe the symbol could be usefull if everbody uses text and not HTML, you can arrage the email using those caracters, but will only work for botton post everything, and not with inline answers. Regards, Guillermo Garron Linux IS user friendly... It's just selective about who its friends are. (Using FC6, CentOS4.4 and Ubuntu 6.06) http://feeds.feedburner.com/go2linux http://www.go2linux.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson If you really believe this quote, why do you insist that bottom posting is the only *correct* way to go? By the way, I do love the quote. :-) John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 10:25:23AM -0600, John C wrote: I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson If you really believe this quote, why do you insist that bottom posting is the only *correct* way to go? There is a huge difference between encouraging someone to do something and forcing them to do it. My intent is to persuade, not to enforce. By the way, I do love the quote. :-) So did I, as soon as I saw it. There are a lot of similarly great quotes from Jefferson and his friends, but this is one of the few that I can fit into a 4-line .sig. :) -- I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[OT] Re: top post fixer?
On 1/22/07, Dave Sherohman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 10:25:23AM -0600, John C wrote: I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson [snip] By the way, I do love the quote. :-) So did I, as soon as I saw it. There are a lot of similarly great quotes from Jefferson and his friends, but this is one of the few that I can fit into a 4-line .sig. :) I would respectfully differ. This sort of thing is stirring but somewhat content-free. We all agree that giving up too much liberty for too little security is a really Bad Idea, and we also all agree that giving up a bit of liberty for increased security is essential (does anyone believe that nuclear weapons should be commercially available and totally unregulated?). The great political questions are ultimately those of degree, which of course does not mean that they aren't profoundly important. I make the same objection to the famous Ben Franklin quote about those who would give up essential liberty [0]. Celejar [0] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: top post fixer?
celejar wrote: On 1/22/07, Dave Sherohman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 10:25:23AM -0600, John C wrote: I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson [snip] By the way, I do love the quote. :-) So did I, as soon as I saw it. There are a lot of similarly great quotes from Jefferson and his friends, but this is one of the few that I can fit into a 4-line .sig. :) I would respectfully differ. This sort of thing is stirring but somewhat content-free. We all agree that giving up too much liberty for too little security is a really Bad Idea, and we also all agree that giving up a bit of liberty for increased security is essential (does anyone believe that nuclear weapons should be commercially available and totally unregulated?). The great political questions are ultimately those of degree, which of course does not mean that they aren't profoundly important. I make the same objection to the famous Ben Franklin quote about those who would give up essential liberty [0]. Celejar [0] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin Oooops.. there I was about to answer Dave's post with a I can live with persuasion :) type comment, when you point out that we are drifting into a almost political discussion. Then you pick on one of my favorite Franklin quotes and bring us to the edge of a Nucular war.:( That was good :) Oh well! since a political discussion does not belong on this list, I'll drop it. :) Cheers. John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Kevin Mark wrote: Now if only I would switch from mutt to gnus That's a pretty good idea if you have more than one list/newsgroup subscription that gets this kind of traffic. I would still give yourself a rainy weekend to learn gnus if you're not a LISPer, though; it's got something of a learning curve but becomes quite comfortable once you're used to it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Please turn your line wraps on at 72 columns, indent quoted material, and reply *above* the singature break. http://wiki.ursine.ca/Best_Online_Quoting_Habits Francis Healy wrote: Andy Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 07:43:05AM -0800, Francis Healy wrote: Why is it that most mail clients default to a top post? When you hit reply, There is a blank space where your cursor it, followed by . wrote: and then the message you are replying to. Yes, quoted. What else should they do? My MUA can't read my mind to tell which quotes are irrelevant and should be deleted. If top posting is realy the bane of everyone's existance that certian voceriferous individuals claim it is, what is wrong with the mail client putting the cursor at the at the botttom of the reply and letting you move it up in the event you need to delete some irrelevant passage. English is read from top down, not from the bottom up. When I read mailing lists, I generally am going through a series of messages. I want to see the content of the current message first. If I need to read the original post, I don't mind scrooling down. The rest of us that get more than a few messages a day don't want, and shouldn't have, to scroll down and piece together a contextual puzzle. Email and news is a form of public speaking. Part of public speaking is sticking to a format that your audience will listen to. http://wiki.ursine.ca/Best_Online_Quoting_Practices#But_within_my_.28very_limited.2C_closed.29_group_of_colleagues_or_friends_top_post_among_each_other_all_the_time.21 I see the point of placing the respone within the prior post if you are addressing a series of issues point by point, but I don't get all the bile that is spewed in the direction of top posters. Then you don't get very much email. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Francis Healy wrote: Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Ken Irving wrote: On Thu, Jan 18, 2007 at 10:57:25PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts... Why is it that most mail clients default to a top post? They don't. Most default to not-top-posting, leaving the cursor at the top of the editor window because most people read and edit from the top down. Bottom posting isn't the answer as well: You should always frame your reply within the context of the text you're replying to, and trim superfluous material. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 07:43:05AM -0800, Francis Healy wrote: Why is it that most mail clients default to a top post? When you hit reply, There is a blank space where your cursor it, followed by . wrote: and then the message you are replying to. If top posting is really as bad as some individuals claim (and I am by no means convinced of this), then change this default behavior in mail clients. Define most. In all of the email clients I have ever chosen to use not a single one exhibits the behavior you describe. Pine, elm, mutt, PMMail/2, PMMail2000, TheBat, Sylpheed-Claws, Thunderbird just to name most. Pretty much the only culprit is Lookout! Is that surprising given that it is a Microsoft product and their modus operandi is to break standards since they know the ignorant masses of their typical user will think it is the other people who are broken? -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 12:15:55PM -0600, Dave Sherohman wrote: Granted, context is much less of a concern when reading in threaded mode within a single mail-reading session, but some blighted souls are still using non-threaded MUAs, memory of the thread's content fades when you move on to other threads (or, heaven forbid, non-email-reading activities), and the context even changes to some degree when one branch of the thread ends and you move into another. Threading alone is not a complete solution to the problem of maintaining context. Of course all of this presumes that one keeps mail around for referencing. At several hundred messages a day in some lists I don't. If I don't read it and need too keep it for something it gets deleted then and there. That's what the archives are for. Besides, if everyone had perfect threading and an infinite archive there would be no reason to quote the entire previous thread anyway. There's just no reason for it at all. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 10:37:56AM -0600, Dave Sherohman wrote: On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 10:25:23AM -0600, John C wrote: If you really believe this quote, why do you insist that bottom posting is the only *correct* way to go? There is a huge difference between encouraging someone to do something and forcing them to do it. My intent is to persuade, not to enforce. Not to mention there's a huge difference between interleaving/trimming and bottom-posting. Bottom-posting is no better than top-posting. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 07:43:05AM -0800, Francis Healy wrote: Why is it that most mail clients default to a top post? When you hit reply, There is a blank space where your cursor it, followed by . wrote: and then the message you are replying to. Yes, quoted. What else should they do? My MUA can't read my mind to tell which quotes are irrelevant and should be deleted. -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 09:13:53PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Thanks to all those emacs folks that pointed out this function! If I can only translate the gnus function to a mutt function... Now if only I would switch from mutt to gnus :-) Could you not just use emacs as the editor for mutt? -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 09:53:33AM +, Andy Smith wrote: On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 09:13:53PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Thanks to all those emacs folks that pointed out this function! If I can only translate the gnus function to a mutt function... Now if only I would switch from mutt to gnus :-) Could you not just use emacs as the editor for mutt? I am in the process of trying to get procmail to filter all posts through the gnus function so that when I use mutt, the post is de-uglified. I do not use emacs. and I do not want to edits posts in it, but wish emacs to process the mail. Cheers, Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal |mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/| | `. `' Operating System| go to counter.li.org and | | `-http://www.debian.org/ |be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: subkeys.pgp.net | my NPO: cfsg.org | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Thanks to all those emacs folks that pointed out this function! If I can only translate the gnus function to a mutt function... Now if only I would switch from mutt to gnus :-) I only use gnus to access newsgroups (I'm reading all my mailing lists through gmane). As newsgroups reader, gnus can't be beat, and mailing lists really works best as a 'newsgroup'. (I use either mutt or kmail to read my email, depending on which MUA irritates me the least last) -- John L. Fjellstad web: http://www.fjellstad.org/ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 04:59:52AM -0500 or thereabouts, Kevin Mark wrote: On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 09:53:33AM +, Andy Smith wrote: Could you not just use emacs as the editor for mutt? I am in the process of trying to get procmail to filter all posts through the gnus function so that when I use mutt, the post is de-uglified. I do not use emacs. and I do not want to edits posts in it, but wish emacs to process the mail. Hi Kevin: I would be interested in this, if you manage to sort it out. :) -- Regards Stephen + Lord, what fools these mortals be! -- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer-Night's Dream + signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
Andy Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 07:43:05AM -0800, Francis Healy wrote: Why is it that most mail clients default to a top post? When you hit reply, There is a blank space where your cursor it, followed by . wrote: and then the message you are replying to. Yes, quoted. What else should they do? My MUA can't read my mind to tell which quotes are irrelevant and should be deleted. -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB If top posting is realy the bane of everyone's existance that certian voceriferous individuals claim it is, what is wrong with the mail client putting the cursor at the at the botttom of the reply and letting you move it up in the event you need to delete some irrelevant passage. When I read mailing lists, I generally am going through a series of messages. I want to see the content of the current message first. If I need to read the original post, I don't mind scrooling down. I see the point of placing the respone within the prior post if you are addressing a series of issues point by point, but I don't get all the bile that is spewed in the direction of top posters.
Re: top post fixer?
On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 10:32:35AM -0500, Stephen wrote: On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 04:59:52AM -0500 or thereabouts, Kevin Mark wrote: On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 09:53:33AM +, Andy Smith wrote: Could you not just use emacs as the editor for mutt? I am in the process of trying to get procmail to filter all posts through the gnus function so that when I use mutt, the post is de-uglified. I do not use emacs. and I do not want to edits posts in it, but wish emacs to process the mail. Hi Kevin: I would be interested in this, if you manage to sort it out. :) Hi Stephen, This was an interesting diversion! I found #emacs on freenode and asked the supplicants of RMS for a magic invocation and lo and behold I was issued an answer: (this is it plus the procmail bits) --.procmailrc snippet--- :0fh: |emacs --batch --eval (with-current-buffer (get-buffer-create \*Article*\) (condition-case nil (while t (insert (read-string \\) \\\n\)) (error)) (gnus-outlook-deuglify-article t) (princ (buffer-string))) - But so far, it has not changed an emails, at least as far as I can tell. If anyone knows why or has a better function, let me know. -Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal |mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/| | `. `' Operating System| go to counter.li.org and | | `-http://www.debian.org/ |be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: subkeys.pgp.net | my NPO: cfsg.org | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 07:56:23AM -0800, Francis Healy wrote: It's not in the event. You almost always need to trim your quotes. Although response-before-reply quoting is itself often a pain to decipher, my biggest beef with top-posting is that top-posters almost always just throw some text in prior to the text they're responding to, then press 'send' without even thinking about trimming the quoted text. I suspect that placing the cursor at the bottom instead of the top would only encourage that sort of behaviour and make things even worse. If top posting is realy the bane of everyone's existance that certian voceriferous individuals claim it is, what is wrong with the mail client putting the cursor at the at the botttom of the reply and letting you move it up in the event you need to delete some irrelevant passage. While you may disagree, most of us find it useful to see the *relevant* context from the original message so that we know what the new one is talking about. Especially on busier lists, it's easy to have enough concurrent conversations taking place that it's impossible to know what a post is talking about without that context. Granted, context is much less of a concern when reading in threaded mode within a single mail-reading session, but some blighted souls are still using non-threaded MUAs, memory of the thread's content fades when you move on to other threads (or, heaven forbid, non-email-reading activities), and the context even changes to some degree when one branch of the thread ends and you move into another. Threading alone is not a complete solution to the problem of maintaining context. If I need to read the original post, I don't mind scrooling down. As I've said above, all the bile is due to the combination of answer/ question format being tougher to decipher (as I hope this message illustrates), top-posts requiring the reader to do more work to find or remember the context of replies, and the vanishingly small number of top-posters who even think about trimming their responses (and even fewer who bother to actually do it). I see the point of placing the respone within the prior post if you are addressing a series of issues point by point, but I don't get all the bile that is spewed in the direction of top posters. -- I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: But so far, it has not changed an emails, at least as far as I can tell. If anyone knows why or has a better function, let me know. Did you try to run it on the command line, to see if it works? I don't really know procmail enough to see what the problem might be -- John L. Fjellstad web: http://www.fjellstad.org/ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 07:56:23AM -0800, Francis Healy wrote: If top posting is realy the bane of everyone's existance that certian voceriferous individuals claim it is, what is wrong with the mail client putting the cursor at the at the botttom of the reply and letting you move it up in the event you need to delete some irrelevant passage. I read from the top down. And almost always need to trim quotes. -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 22:57 -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. Isn't top post fixer a synonym to a LART? ;-) I think he was looking for a kinder, gentler alternative to the clue-by-four. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Ken Irving wrote: On Thu, Jan 18, 2007 at 10:57:25PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. --- HEADER BLANK_LINE TOP_POST BLANK_LINE MESSAGE SIG --- into --- HEADER BLANK_LINE MESSAGE BLANK_LINE TOP_POST SIG -- would it be possible to 'classify' posts and fix them? (top post,interspersed post,bottom post) if possible, would there be a down-side? anyone with hair-brainded ideas welcome :-) Email in all its forms is structured only by casual convention, outside of headers and multipart sections, and I can't imagine doing this sort of automated correcting of posts. Well, at least moving it from a top-post to a bottom-post makes it easier to recover when it comes time to followup to a top-posted followup. Try doing it manually, a useful exercise before automating anything, and I suspect you'll see many difficulties due to all sorts of things, like missing whitespace, hare-brained quoting schemes, etc. I'm amazed how well Gnus does in fixing it anyway, despite that, though. If you could convince everyone to use the same quoting and other conventions, then maybe it could work, but in that case why not just continue and also convince them to not top-post in the first place. I tend to be of the opinion that this is a social problem, and thus cannot be solved through technological means. To that end, I have a page up that everyone here is welcome to constructively edit at http://wiki.ursine.ca/Best_Online_Quoting_Practices that I point people to. Obviously, I don't care one way or another if people also point people to it; if I cared, it wouldn't be publicly available to begin with. :o) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Kevin Mark wrote: with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. - --- HEADER BLANK_LINE TOP_POST BLANK_LINE MESSAGE SIG - --- into - --- HEADER BLANK_LINE MESSAGE BLANK_LINE TOP_POST SIG - -- would it be possible to 'classify' posts and fix them? (top post,interspersed post,bottom post) Gnus has this functionality, IIRC. The name is on the tip of my tongue, like de-outlookify or something. if possible, would there be a down-side? anyone with hair-brainded ideas welcome :-) OE users sometimes spaz over it? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Paul Johnson writes: Gnus has this functionality, IIRC. The name is on the tip of my tongue, like de-outlookify or something. ,[ C-h k W-Y-f ] | W Y f runs the command gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article | which is an interactive autoloaded Lisp function in `deuglify'. | It is bound to W Y f, menu-bar Article Washing (Outlook) | Deuglify Full (Outlook) deuglify. | [Arg list not available until function definition is loaded.] | | Deuglify broken Outlook (Express) articles and redisplay. ` :-) -- -- Jhair -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Ken Irving wrote: On Thu, Jan 18, 2007 at 10:57:25PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts... Why is it that most mail clients default to a top post? When you hit reply, There is a blank space where your cursor it, followed by . wrote: and then the message you are replying to. If top posting is really as bad as some individuals claim (and I am by no means convinced of this), then change this default behavior in mail clients.
Re: top post fixer?
On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 07:43:05 -0800 (PST) Francis Healy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Ken Irving wrote: On Thu, Jan 18, 2007 at 10:57:25PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts... Why is it that most mail clients default to a top post? When you hit reply, There is a blank space where your cursor it, followed by . wrote: and then the message you are replying to. If top posting is really as bad as some individuals claim (and I am by no means convinced of this), then change this default behavior in mail clients. What clients are you talking about? Sylpheed-Claws doesn't do that and besides, as someone pointed out a while ago, its where you would start trimming unnecessary stuff ;) Regards, Andrei -- If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. (Albert Einstein) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. The Gnus people already did that: W Y c or Article - Washing - (Outlook) Deuglify - Rearrange Citation -- John L. Fjellstad web: http://www.fjellstad.org/ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 09:59:26AM -0800, John L Fjellstad wrote: Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. The Gnus people already did that: W Y c or Article - Washing - (Outlook) Deuglify - Rearrange Citation Thanks to all those emacs folks that pointed out this function! If I can only translate the gnus function to a mutt function... Now if only I would switch from mutt to gnus :-) -Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal |mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/| | `. `' Operating System| go to counter.li.org and | | `-http://www.debian.org/ |be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: subkeys.pgp.net | my NPO: cfsg.org | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: top post fixer?
On Thu, Jan 18, 2007 at 10:57:25PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. --- HEADER BLANK_LINE TOP_POST BLANK_LINE MESSAGE SIG --- into --- HEADER BLANK_LINE MESSAGE BLANK_LINE TOP_POST SIG -- would it be possible to 'classify' posts and fix them? (top post,interspersed post,bottom post) if possible, would there be a down-side? anyone with hair-brainded ideas welcome :-) Email in all its forms is structured only by casual convention, outside of headers and multipart sections, and I can't imagine doing this sort of automated correcting of posts. Try doing it manually, a useful exercise before automating anything, and I suspect you'll see many difficulties due to all sorts of things, like missing whitespace, hare-brained quoting schemes, etc. If you could convince everyone to use the same quoting and other conventions, then maybe it could work, but in that case why not just continue and also convince them to not top-post in the first place. Good luck! Ken -- Ken Irving, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:57:25 -0500 Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. - --- HEADER BLANK_LINE TOP_POST BLANK_LINE MESSAGE SIG - --- into - --- HEADER BLANK_LINE MESSAGE BLANK_LINE TOP_POST SIG - -- would it be possible to 'classify' posts and fix them? (top post,interspersed post,bottom post) if possible, would there be a down-side? anyone with hair-brainded ideas welcome :-) cheers, Kev It may be a problem that many people do not insert blank lines between the quote and the new text. Regards, Andrei -- If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. (Albert Einstein) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 22:57 -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. Isn't top post fixer a synonym to a LART? ;-) -- Cheers, Sven Arvidsson http://www.whiz.se PGP Key ID 760BDD22 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: top post fixer?
Why would that be a problem? ;-} On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 12:29:04AM +0200, Andrei Popescu wrote: On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:57:25 -0500 Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. - --- HEADER BLANK_LINE TOP_POST BLANK_LINE MESSAGE SIG - --- into - --- HEADER BLANK_LINE MESSAGE BLANK_LINE TOP_POST SIG - -- would it be possible to 'classify' posts and fix them? (top post,interspersed post,bottom post) if possible, would there be a down-side? anyone with hair-brainded ideas welcome :-) cheers, Kev It may be a problem that many people do not insert blank lines between the quote and the new text. -- Ken Irving, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top post fixer?
On Fri, 2007-01-19 at 23:49 +0100, Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 22:57 -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: Hi folks, with the continual talk of the bad etiquitte of top posts, I was thinking if anyone has ever developed a way to fix the problem. Isn't top post fixer a synonym to a LART? ;-) Yessiree! -- greg, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The technology that is Stronger, better, faster: Linux signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
