Paul, After being a long-time reader and occasional poster to this list, I'll tell you it's the second most common thing talked about around here...next to router forwarding lessons. Well, ok maybe it's not #2, but the complaints come around at least every couple of months anyways.
Cheers! Arthur ________________________________ I've stopped 58,047 spam and fraud messages. You can too! Free trial of spam and fraud protection at http://www.cloudmark.com/sig/?rc=f9r9z -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of MontrealPaul Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 9:00 AM To: vnc-list@realvnc.com Subject: Re: On "netiquette" [was: Indented replys] Wow, I didn't intend to stir up such a maelstrom, but matters of etiquette do tend to evoke passionate replies, don't they! Well, after more than two decades in I.T., I still manage to learn something(s) every day. While I've been in and out of countless forums, I for some reason have managed to avoid traditional mail-lists. Ironic that this discussion on netiquette began as a question relating to an aspect of the threaded archive web page, which didn't exist in the old mail-lists! As one who normally uses e-mail as a rapid and expedient form of communication, where dialogists generally remember what was just said and are immediately interested in what is new, I am accustomed to seeing newer material at the top, which is how most mainstream e-mail clients (that I have used, anyway) format it. There is generally not enough time to pick and sort through previous statements and edit it for a statement-for-statement chronology, though I often do so when clarity requires it. My previous statements in this thread pertain to the top versus bottom argument, not the interspersal of statements and arguments. That said, I understand that the above does not apply to mail-lists or even online forums, where posts may be read days, weeks, or years after even their writers have forgotten about them! Robin Hill and, particularly, John Kaufmann make very valid and convincing arguments for the interspersal of statements to facilitate reading, and more closely resemble live dialogue, as opposed to monologue, which is what many of these posts 'sound' like! I'll only quote the following from John Kaufmann: > .... When you edit for context, you > automatically put your response below the thought to which it responds > - and in the process shorten the whole post. > Nuff said, but I invite the reader to read the whole post here (John Kaufmann, Tue May 2 03:36:01 2006): http://www.realvnc.com/pipermail/vnc-list/2006-May/054785.html Oh, and one more quote: > ... but in the interest of relative brevity I will stop here. > -- > John Me too. :o) Salutations, -Paul P.S.: Thanks to all for your help with indenting, as well as this interesting and lively discussion on netiquette! On 5/1/06, John Kaufmann kaufmann-at-nb.net |VNCList| <...> wrote: > On 2006.05.01 18:23 ............ wrote: > > > regarding the "netiquette" of having newer material down below: While it may seem logical, from a top-to-bottom-left-to-right (in our culture)... > > "our culture" in this sense: English, like all languages descended > from Latin, is written from top to bottom, and within each line from > left to right, as the thought is developed. > > > > ... sense, to have older material at the top, it get increasingly annoying to have to scroll down past everyone's 'old news' to get to the newer stuff,... > > It's not a question of older/newer; it's a question of order of thought, as: > This. > What's wrong with putting the answer before the question? > > > > ... then maybe scroll too far, then have to hunt for the start of the newer stuff. > > Properly done, that should never happen. What is proper? This is the > essence of netiquette: With one writer and typically multiple readers, > the burden is on the writer to respect the readers' time. So the > usually-forgotten corollary (in the tedious top-posting/bottom-posting > wars) is to *minimize > quoting* -- prune all but what is relevant to the reply. That way, > you not only do *not* have to hunt for the thoughts in the reply, you > see *directly* the context of the reply, which minimizes ambiguity about the writer's intent. > > This has the additional advantage that, when a writer replies to a > post, he responds to every point, or at least every point for which he has a response. > Far too often the laziness that top-posting has engendered results in > a poorly-considered reaction at the top of a post, often missing one > or more crucial points in the completely unedited text that follows -- > indeed, often missing the point entirely -- so we have a worthless > thought followed by a complete regurgitation of thoughts to which the > writer may or may not be responding -- followed by perhaps a half > dozen copies of the list footer. It is stupid. It is [as the SMS > restrictions observe] an abuse of bandwidth. It is, finally, a > reflection of our increasingly poor manners, conveying an implicit > message that the writer's time is too valuable to edit for the readers' convenience and understanding. > > Of course there are times when no quoting at all is needed to convey a > simple reply to a simple question. Then don't quote, above or below [cf SMS]. > > So, if the critical question is editing he quoted material, rather > than where you put it, why do the relevant RFCs deprecate top-posting? > Because it is simply incompatible with proper editing, inviting the > kind of time- and bandwidth-wasting abuse described above. When you > edit for context, you automatically put your response below the > thought to which it responds - and in the process shorten the whole post. > > There is a larger context to this question, about how we got to our > generally slovenly state of netiquette, and some illuminating history > as well as current examples of lists that still operate with the > courtesy and efficiency that was common 20 years ago ... but in the interest of relative brevity I will stop here. > -- > John _______________________________________________ VNC-List mailing list VNC-List@realvnc.com To remove yourself from the list visit: http://www.realvnc.com/mailman/listinfo/vnc-list _______________________________________________ VNC-List mailing list VNC-List@realvnc.com To remove yourself from the list visit: http://www.realvnc.com/mailman/listinfo/vnc-list
