Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 15:00:54 -0400 (EDT) From: pgreen <polytarp@m-net.arbornet.org> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> Cc: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>, rob <rob@pythonemproject.com>, "chat@freebsd.org" <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Bottom-quoting (was Re: My friends were amazed at FreeBSD...) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0205261500350.27602-100000@m-net.arbornet.org> In-Reply-To: <20020526183504.GA472@lpt.ens.fr>
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On Sun, 26 May 2002, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > > 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. > > Since you hang around the -current and -hackers lists, I imagine > you've seen several such "clueless computer users" there. Some of > whom are significant contributors to the project. Now I'm scared for > the future of FreeBSD. > > You haven't said why it's wrong to bottom-quote (apart from the > bandwidth issue). You claim that it's as "annoying" as top-quoting an > entire post, which is strange, since if it's bottom-quoted you're not > forced to look at it. > > If we're talking annoyance factors, one can pick out several in > anyone's style. Here are some in yours. > > Mike Meyer said on May 26, 2002 at 13:19:18: > > In <20020526173949.GA230@lpt.ens.fr>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> typed: > > Is it really necessary to quote the message ID, sender's name *and* > sender's address in the attribution line, thus causing it to overflow > the margin? What happened to the "keep to 72 characters" rule? > > > > > > 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. > > How about adding a few spaces between those lines, to distinguish > paragraphs more clearly? A carriage-return character wouldn't consume > significant bandwidth and it would make the whole thing much more > readable. > > - Rahul > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message > LoL @ RaHule. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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