[H-GEN] Email Ettiquite; a Sardonic Reminder.

[Gary Curtis]

ME 2
(sorry Bruce, it been a long time since a chance this good came along)
Gaz

On 9/10/06, Bruce Campbell <bc at humbug.org.au> wrote:
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
>
>
> Most guides on email ettiquite focus on two important aspects.  The first
> aspect, which is the bane of all thinking persons, is emphasing the evils
> of top-posting.  This can be summed up as:
>
>         A: It is converse to the normal left-to-right, top-to-bottom
>            reading order.
>
>         Q: Why are people so against top-posting?
>
> The second aspect guides to email ettiquite focus on is quoting only the
> bits that are relevant to your reply.  It is quite tiring to plough
> through a thread and read the same bits of text over, and > over,
> and >> over, and >>> over again, to say nothing of the annoyance factor,
> >>>> again.
>
> Both of these aspects are incorporated in guides in an effort to ensure
> that people have fully read, and more importantly, understood, both the
> original mail and their own reply.  This has benefits, in that a little
> bit of effort in writing the post can encourage people to actually read
> your post.  A bit like the section of bricked text you are now reading.
>
> Now, let us examine a recent thread on this very mailing list.  The posts
> generally opened with:
>
>    On this day, May Nostrum wrote:
>    > [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
>    > [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
>    > On a different day, Jimmy Kibitz wrote:
>    >> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
>    >> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
>    >> Way back when, May Nostrum wrote:
>    >>> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
>    >>> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
>
> ( and so forth ).
>
> Expanded out, that section of quoted text takes up slightly more than a
> full screen (at 24x80).  Rather than seeing the start of their hopefully
> well-constructed arguments with a little bit of reminder text above it, I
> need to wade through reams of abnormally-quoted text to get to the gist of
> their post.  I have no need, or desire, to read the list's reminder text
> aaannnooottthhheeerrr ttthhhrrreee tttiiimmmeeesss...
>
> Thus, simply because neither of the two participants in the thread have
> bothered to put any effort into their replies, I see no reason to put any
> effort into reading their arguments.  Without seeing any of their words, I
> am biased against them.  They're probably just windoze weenies anyway who
> had someone tweak their mail program to simply put the cursor at the
> bottom, and their replies are based solely on a single sentence that
> caught their fancy during their reading.  'Next' is far easier... oooh,
> thats the latest issue of 'The Adventures of Semicolon; The Dividing Line
> Between Crime and Justice'.  Far more interesting reading.
>
> So, if you've managed to read this far, congratulations.  If you've worked
> out whether this diatribe applies to you, bully for you.  Theres an email
> equitte guide linked from the HUMBUG web page for further reading,
> grokking and following:  http://www.humbug.org.au/netiquette.php .  Enjoy!
>
> --
>    Bruce.
>
>
>
>
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