Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 13:19:18 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm-dated-1022869158.1085f2@mired.org> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> Cc: rob <rob@pythonemproject.com>, "chat@freebsd.org" <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Bottom-quoting (was Re: My friends were amazed at FreeBSD...) Message-ID: <15601.10022.167754.574044@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <20020526173949.GA230@lpt.ens.fr> References: <20020524143036.C67484@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20020524164101.P51722-100000@muheleja.eenet.ee> <20020524163603.L81843@lpt.ens.fr> <3CEECD6A.5E9BB6A6@pythonemproject.com> <20020525175149.A69827@lpt.ens.fr> <15601.2665.379231.456776@guru.mired.org> <20020526173949.GA230@lpt.ens.fr>
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In <20020526173949.GA230@lpt.ens.fr>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> typed: > Mike Meyer said on May 26, 2002 at 11:16:41: > > > Maybe you need another haircut :) or your mails do, they're too long > > > on top. There is no earthly reason to quote an entire mail on top of > > > each of your mails. If your mail client doesn't allow you to delete > > > lines[1], maybe you could bottom quote instead. Some people don't > > > like it, but it's better than forcing your readers to wade through > > > lines and lines of irrelevant stuff which they've read already, before > > > getting to your point... > > If your mail reader is that broken, don't quote. All the stuff that's > > been read before is irrelevant whether it's on the top or the bottom. > If you receive more that around 20 emails a day, *some* form of > quoting is essential, otherwise keeping track will be impossible. If you get fewer than 100 emails a day, quoting is irrelevant, as you can pretty trivially find the old message in your mailbox. If you can't, you need a better mail reader. When you get more than 100 a day, you want to shoot anyone that doesn't do at least minimal editing for wasting your time and money. > My > remark, about the mail client not letting you delete lines, was not > meant to be serious -- I certainly hope such a thing doesn't exist. > Selective and appropriate quoting is the best of all, but bottom > quoting is not so bad; I've seen JKH and Linus Torvalds do it, among > other celebrities, and it's pretty standard in the "real world". If by "real world", you mean "clueless computer users", I'd agree with that. If you mean the world of communication on dead trees, then I've never seen anyone so rude and thoughtless as to quote an entire message verbatim. Wasting trees is even worse than wasting bandwidth. > Top-quoting an entire mail, on the other hand, serves only to annoy > the reader. I'd say that was true about quoting the entire message verbatim, no matter where you put it. If the text you're including isn't important enough to edit, it isn't important enough to send. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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