On Tue, Jan 05 2010, Rob Huffstedtler wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Manoj Srivastava <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>>
>> You also added a singlew line of non-content to several dozens
>> of lines of untrimmed irrelevancies (there is no reason not to trim
>> away signatures, for instance). This lack of care in electronic
>> communication does tend to indicate sloppy thinking.
> Do you have any research to back that up, or is that assertion of the same
> quality as "people who don't fold their underwear demonstrate sloppy
> thinking"?
Of course I have research, and experience, to back that up.
Published research? Yes, there are a few papers out there too. Google
is your friend.
> Also, I find it ironic that you accuse those who disagree with you of
> being luddites, when most of them are using email clients that do
> threading and quote suppression, which makes top posting a more
> coherent model. Sounds like you have insufficient technology on your
> end.
Threading is orthogonal to quoting. Indeed, if you are assuming
that people have low enough mail volume to keep threads around, you
don't need quoting -- but people do delete mails, especially in high
volume mailing lists. Or when they are not merely subscribed to a few,
parochial, low volume lists.
Quote suppression also makes quoting futile.
Given that people quote, and that one assumes that quoting the
previous conversation has merit, shouldn't the missive be in the order
of the conversation, with irrelevancies elided?
> At the end of the day, I can't believe we're going through this
> discussion again.
As long as people continue to trend to the lazy, superficial,
careless modes of dialog, this is bound to continue to come up.
> You can bemoan the bad habits that AOLers brought with them when they
> showed up on the net 15 years ago all you want, but the tides of
> history are against you. Personally, I'm thankful for them bad
> habits, netiquette cluelessness and all, because they create the
> demand for the work I do.
The tides of history are indeed against me. We have been
steadily declining in all measures of competence in the science in
technology arena, to the point where the majority of the country is
functionally illiterate when it comes to either science or
technology. By all standard metrics, including where our country stands
when our high school students are compared to the others in developed
countries, we stand in the high 20's when it comes to how educated our
young'uns are. And all of these facts are just a search engine away
(the government education sites are surprisingly frank of the state of
the decline).
Superstitions, and the assault on reason are on the rise. And
care and thoughtful conversation are on the decline. Anything that
requires thought, or plannin, or any kind of measured interaction are
to be eschewed in this brave new world of ours.
Tides of history is not a very good argument to bring forth in
modern America. We seem to be poised on the cusp of a long decline.
> People who complain about top posting are just like Nazis. Now that
> Godwin's law has come into play, can we please end this?
Another silly, brainless cop out. Par for the course, I'd
guess. However, I am in the process of taking down my network, and I
won't be back up again until the end of the month, so I guess you do
have your wish.
manoj
--
Don't relax! It's only your tension that's holding you together.
Manoj Srivastava <[email protected]> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
4096R/C5779A1C E37E 5EC5 2A01 DA25 AD20 05B6 CF48 9438 C577 9A1C
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