Laura Creighton wrote: > A lot of the time, what you really want is to get rid of all > of the quoted material altogether. A bit of usenet history > is of interest here. In the very old days, we didn't have a > way to quote any mail at all. We didn't have threads, either. . . . > This happened often enough that several of us decided that it > would be a good idea to put quoting into the mail and news > readers we were using at the time. And I am one of the > people who did so. And it made certain things infinitely > more convenient. . . . > This sort of point-by-point dressing down really had only one > counterpart in face-to-face communication -- where a Superior > dresses down a Subordinate, in front of an audience. The > main purpose of such things has nothing to do with the > Subordinate that got the dressing down, but everything to do > with maintaining the Superior's authority and making the > audience quiver in their boots (while thanking God that they > weren't getting the chewing out). > > So, unsurprisingly, people who had made tiny errors in > understanding or interpretation flipped right out at what > they perceived as bucket-loads of nitpicking contempt hurled > at them for no particularly good reason, by a person whose > authority they didn't recognise. It was also widely > condemned as a way to impose a hierarchical structure on > something that had hitherto been working in a rather flat, > equalitarian manner. And it had a chilling effect on whether > people who were young, new and trying to learn things were > willing to post their current thoughts on a matter.
Thanks for that bit of reply style history! I've only been using email since quoting became a common feature, so I never saw this before and after effect. Have you seen a reduction in this "dressing down" style of reply since top-posting became common? Peter Shute ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org
