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> But you and at least one other Plucker-veteran are not incontrovertably
> correct about the top-posting issue being "etiquette", which would imply
> some sort of universal agreement, and tend to sound arrogant and
> patronizing towards deviants.
It's not about being "correct", it's just the way it is. We didn't
invent it, it existed eons before we started sending our first text message
using ttys and greenscreens decades ago.
> Take a look at the newsgroups seattle.general and seattle.eats over the
> last few weeks... there has been a long discussion about this same topic
> (with zero input from me... I only read it out of curiousity because of
> the zealotry of a few of you here) where the majority seem to view
> top-posting as preferable.
Again, news is not email, they are very different beasts, though the
message is conveyed in a similar fashion. But since you insist, I refer you
to the FAQ about quoting style in newsgroups from news.newusers.questions:
http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/nquote.html
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html#ss2.3
> But perhaps you could tone down your 'tude a bit. It's not like someone
> sneezing in your food, which presumably is universally considered a "bad
> thing" regardless of location, culture, etc.
You're right, I should just immediately delete messages that don't
follow the standard conventions of email, mailing lists, etc. and accepted
etiquette. You're right, problem solved.
> Again your arrogant bigotry showing through. Most professional letters
> and nearly all legal ones are based on templates.
True on your first point, business correspondence is based on
templates, which doesn't even apply here. This is a mailing list, and nobody
needs to set up "templates" to send messages to this list.
If you want a template, simply compose a message to plucker-dev or
plucker-list, with the proper From/To/Reply-To, and then save it as a draft
in your mail client of choice. When you want to post to the list, pick that
message up, and add a body to it, and send it along. Problem solved.
Taking a message on say.. the Python parser's argument syntax,
hitting Reply, removing the subject and body of the quoted material in the
message, and starting a new topic on say, the color of the icons in the
viewer, is wrong, and denotes disrespect, and laziness on the poster's part.
> The only reason it's annoying or turns out to be rude is that there are
> mail headers that thread it... something not obvious to the new users.
You're not replying to the original message, since your text has
nothing relevant to the original thread which your "template" derived from
in this case. Again, this has nothing at all to do with mail clients or
threading.
This is a carbon problem, not a silicon one.
> I was guilty of that in my first week posting here, until I looked at the
> web archives and realized the resulting odd threading and checked out the
> entire message headers.
The threading was "odd", because of careless users, not the list.
> I've tried to be more careful since. I use Eudora 4.3, which doesn't make
> editing outgoing headers easy, so even discerning the problem took a bit
> of detective work.
Again, irrelevant. If you have nothing to add to an existing thread,
don't hit reply. If your mail client can't let you easily post a new message
to a list, or save a template to post to the list, or create an addressbook
entry to use to compose a message to the list (in pine, for example, I have
p-l for plucker-list, p-d for plucker-dev, and so on), then I suggest
upgrading to one which does allow this standard behavior.
> But David, what would be rude or annoying annoying about it if not for the
> header problem?
The problem isn't with the headers, it's with the careless users
ignoring the fact that Replying to a message, removing anything relevant,
and using it as a template for a new message on a completely unrelated
subject is rude and annoying, not to mention incorrect.
Here's a simple rule: If you have nothing to add to an existing
message, do not hit reply. Simple logic.
> Are you just in a particularly nasty and intolerant mood, or is there
> something inherently unsavory (to you) in people hitting "reply" rather
> than typing in "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"?
Well, for one, it's not a reply, if it doesn't contain context of
the previous message being replied to. Second, if the subject of the message
has been changed from "Re: The Original Message" to something completely
different, it's not a reply. If you think this is nasty or intolerant,
you've never met me in person. I'm being quite open and forgiving. Besides,
this isn't my battle, I'm just justifying why this behavior is frowned upon,
by several hundred thousand internet users, not just two Plucker developers.
I'm done with this argument. This isn't my problem to solve, I know
how to compose email and post messages to mailing lists. The other users are
the ones who need to learn, not I.
> None of it was there when I joined, this was suggested several times
> since, and it still isn't there. Ideally you should include a bit about
> email headers too.
It is assumed, perhaps wrongfully with the deluge of clueless
non-intenet-aware users, that when you join a mailing list, you have taken
all of the steps required to be a happy contributor to that list.
This means the standard rules of reading all of the past messages
(within your relevant timeframe of reference), reading the mailing list FAQ
(of which there currently is none, I'll take the lead on rectifying that),
and watching others post, get a feel for who does what and what roles they
play on the list, all before posting your FIRST message to the list. Most
people don't do this, and get burned by it.
So to review:
1. Top-quoting is frowned upon, everywhere, not just here.
2. Hijacking a thread message to start a new message is incorrect.
3. Keep topics and discussions relevant, and concise, quoting only
the relevant parts to keep the conversation flowing.
4. When in doubt, consult the mailing list FAQ (when available)
> 4. Do not start a new thread or topic by hitting "Reply" and
> changing the subject. The mailing list uses mail headers, which may
> require a special command (such as "Blah blah" in Eudora, by xxx in
> Microsoft Outlook, by clicking "Full Headers" in Yahoo...) to view.
> These are used to "thread" the threads. Start a new thread by
> starting and manually addressing a new message.
The "mailing list" does not use headers to thread. This is a basic
component of email, and for further review, I suggest reading RFC822 or 2822
to find out more. We didn't invent this.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html
> Does anyone on the list have the power and willingness to solve the
> problem by modifying the page at http://www.plkr.org/index.pl/contact and
> at http://lists.rubberchicken.org/mailman/listinfo or are we just
> whistling Dixie?
The change will appear on the new website. As for the list archive
signup page, that's within Mark's domain. I'll create a Plucker Mailing List
FAQ and pass it on to him. We'll email it out once a month or reference it
on the list from time to time for those that may forget how to compose a
simple email to the list, or reply to a message in an existing thread.
For me, the problem is solved with the 'd' key.
d.
perldoc -qa.j | perl -lpe '($_)=m("(.*)")'
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