Re: IETF-meta (was: Fisking vs Top-Posting)

[Dave Cridland]

On Mon Sep 27 15:37:56 2010, Richard L. Barnes wrote:
This group is dedicated to the discussion of ancillary issues of   
interest to the IETF community, especially discussions about how  
IETF  discussions and meetings should work.


Oh, I thought it was the technical rubbish that was off-topic here.

Dave.
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IETF-meta (was: Fisking vs Top-Posting)

[Richard L. Barnes]

NEW NON-IETF LIST ANNOUNCEMENT

IETF Meta-Discussions

This group is dedicated to the discussion of ancillary issues of  
interest to the IETF community, especially discussions about how IETF  
discussions and meetings should work.
-- IETF meeting locations / travel 
-- Email composition design patterns 
-- Anything related to DiffServ politics









On Sep 20, 2010, at 2:20 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

One of the problems I have seen emerge on many IETF mailing lists is  
the habit of fisking.


By fisking I mean responding to a post  line by line *while reading  
it for the first time*.


Now sometimes a line by line response is entirely appropriate. If  
someone raises six different issues, you want to respond to each one  
separately. But other times I see posts of the following form:


> We should buy the red van

Are you crazy, the last three vans were yellow. Only an idiot would  
buy a red van (etc)


> Because even though yellow is traditional the red one is on sale  
for $1000 off.


I seem to be reading an increasing number of posts on various lists  
where it is very clear to me that the poster did not bother to read  
the entire message before starting their reply. In particular I have  
read rather a lot of people starting off by accusing their opponent  
of being ignorant of issues that their opponent actually states only  
a few paragraphs further on.



Traditionally, top-posting (or bottom posting) has been discouraged  
in favor of responding line by line. I think it is time to reverse  
that preference.


In particular I find that arguments are often less combative and  
somewhat shorter in mediums where people are forced to restate the  
issue they are objecting to in their own words.


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Website: http://hallambaker.com/

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