Re: List netiquette; General Mutt-specific [Was: Please set your line wrap to a sane value]
On Sun, Dec 02, 2012 at 06:12:32PM +1100, Erik Christiansen wrote: That seems a more positive step than just plonking the barbarians at the gates who refuse to recognise the price of receiving free help. (And yes, even in this reply, we're doing your research and investigative thinking for you.) Ok, this, more than any of the previous discussion, clarifies the situation for me. Within the global community of hundreds of millions of email users, there's a smaller, cloistered constituency of perhaps a few thousand who prefer the classic text-only tools of 30 and 40 years ago. Within that smaller group, there are some who regard the larger world of email users with contempt. I've seen the terms lazy, ignorant, stupid, and barbarians at the gates used by members of this list to refer to those who don't adhere to their strictures. They chastise those who post without following these undocumented rules, or just summarily delete such posts. Some claim the rules are so venerable and obvious they do not require explicit statement. Some members of this group even presume to be providing invaluable service to the world, as suggested by Erik's parenthetical above. In my view, no amount of argument or evidence is going to change the minds of anyone in this smaller group. That's fine. Within the domain of lists that discuss these classic tools, we should adhere to the practices of that community. -pd -- Peter Davis The Tech Curmudgeon http://www.techcurmudgeon.com
Re: List netiquette; General Mutt-specific [Was: Please set your line wrap to a sane value]
=- Peter Davis wrote on Sun 2.Dec'12 at 8:54:58 -0500 -=
Ok, this, more than any of the previous discussion, clarifies the
situation for me. Within the global community of hundreds of
millions of email users, there's a smaller, cloistered
constituency of perhaps a few thousand who prefer the classic
text-only tools of 30 and 40 years ago.
{...}
In my view, no amount of argument or evidence is going to change
the minds of anyone in this smaller group. That's fine. Within the
domain of lists that discuss these classic tools, we should adhere
to the practices of that community.
I admit, I lost track of why there is even a conflict.
- some people send eMails to lists.
- other people read those.
- some of those eMails are badly formatted:
- html, long-lines, tofu, fotu, ...
- they're considered bad because there are cases where/ when such
formatting hurts:
- client can't reformat well enough to desired style.
- especially tofu, fotu.
- html, long-lines for simpler clients.
- blind people having to read useless full-quotes.
- clients for sender receiver exist to allow for dynamic
reformatting as desired by sender reader.
- applies to html + long-lines.
_GOOD_ sender clients should respect rfc3676 for format-flowed,
which suggests that _raw_ messages should still be somehow
human-readable, even if the reader client couldn't deal with it.
For html-junkies there is 'multipart/alternative'... (even though I
hate such waste, it's better than html-only).
For stuff like fotu, tofu, where no client can deal with this
nonsense, the human behind it is required to respect the reader.
So... Peter, Tony, if you (and the _majority_ of mail-users) would
use _SUCH_ tools, then _everybody_ would be happy and nobody would
have the need to complain about anything...
But ... you require every _reader_ to upgrade rather than every
sender... why is this?
I recommend to all of you to (re-)read rfc3676.
Have a nice reading.
--
© Rado S. -- You must provide YOUR effort for your goal!
EVERY effort counts: at least to show your attitude.
You're responsible for ALL you do: you get what you give.
Re: List netiquette; General Mutt-specific [Was: Please set your line wrap to a sane value]
On 02.12.12 08:54, Peter Davis wrote: In my view, no amount of argument or evidence is going to change the minds of anyone in this smaller group. That's fine. Within the domain of lists that discuss these classic tools, we should adhere to the practices of that community. Eureka! That is what we ask. You can fit in, after all. It is though, arrant nonsense to pretend that you offer evidence, when your immediately prior baseless assertion about the insularity of our norms was presented without evidence, and immediately refuted by evidence that they are common across many lists. It is worth understanding that the degenerate communication practices of the inconsiderate masses are not improved or made less abhorrent by the sheer numbers who fail to write for the benefit of their readers. It is foolish to come to a list, declaring Do it my way. I have hordes of ugly friends outside, so I am the majority though I stand here alone. Tolerance of your attempted imperialism has not been due to the arguments having any merit, as much as cognizance of G.B. Shaw's words; Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature! Sorry, we're not buying what you're selling, though it was an amusing bit of nonsense while it lasted. If you need help with mutt, we're here to make suggestions. Erik -- Gnothi seauton, the Ancient Greek aphorism Know thyself, was inscribed in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi according to the Greek periegetic (travelogue) writer Pausanias. The Suda, a tenth century encyclopedia of Greek Knowledge, says it is a warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude.- Wikipedia
List netiquette; General Mutt-specific [Was: Please set your line wrap to a sane value]
On 01.12.12 17:57, Peter Davis wrote: the 72-column wrapping rule and the non-HTML rule can hardly be considered netiquette except perhaps within this tiny circle. Otherwise they are, at best, quaint relics of an earlier era. There are other bastions of consideration for the reader, not yet overrun by the ignorant hordes. Consider: HTML is not email, and email doesn't contain HTML, so please turn HTML formatting OFF in your email client. We have filters in place that will reject your message if your posting contains HTML. - http://gpl-violations.org/mailinglists.html You are probably right - we should similarly declare the mutt community's communication code, if only to help newbies have their posts read. Of the many on that page, I think this rule in particular can save the world man-years of wasted time: In general, your reply should contain at least as much text as the amount of text you are quoting, if not more. Never quote back dozens of lines of text and simply add a single line of text to the bottom - people will *hate* you for that! It also reduces the world's burden of visible self-indulgent lazy stupidity. Given the time we've all invested in this thread, then this rule from another list is worth publishing, at least in part: Plain text, 72 characters per line Many subscribers and developers read their mail on text-based mailers (mail(1), emacs, Mutt) and they find HTML-formatted messages, or lines that stretch beyond 72 characters often unreadable. Most OpenBSD mailing lists strip messages of MIME content before sending them out to the rest of the list. If you don't use plain text your messages will be reformatted or, if they cannot be reformatted, summarily rejected. The only mailing list that allows attachments is the ports list, they will be removed from messages on the other mailing lists. - http://www.openbsd.org/mail.html Automatically reformatting or deleting objectionable posts is one way to obviate the need for a lot of useless discussion, based only on unwillingness of one or two newbies to respect the cumulative time and effort of the _many_ readers of their posts. I herewith move that we publish a netiquette guide, quaint or not (in the eyes of newbies), on http://www.mutt.org/mail-lists.html. A merging of the two cited above, edited to remove material specific to the other lists, might serve as a basis. Any seconders? Any other guidance, gleaned from other better organised lists than ours? Just in case ignorance of No HTML still abounds, there's: Turn off any HTML or Richtext features in your mail program. Don't post attachments. and more, at http://www.procmail.org/era/lists.html And here's what happened when once HTML sneaked onto the Vim mailing list via Google Groups: I'm not sure if there is a public setting now. I asked the right question to the right team and they switched the Vim group to plain text. - Bram Moolenaar, after HTML was posted to vim_use from Google Groups. OK, that limited survey hopefully shows that ignorance is not the best basis for making a claim - the supposedly insular norms are in fact common to many technical lists. Not that it matters. It is only as an act of graciousness that informed Mutterers take the trouble to declare what trash they will not trouble themselves to read. I think that should be done, and will do any legwork I can, once we generally concur on the way forward. That seems a more positive step than just plonking the barbarians at the gates who refuse to recognise the price of receiving free help. (And yes, even in this reply, we're doing your research and investigative thinking for you.) Erik -- Hello. Please do not post styled HTML crap with embedded images to this mailing list (or any mailing list). - LuKreme on procmail-users ML
Re: netiquette
* Ken Weingold ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [11 Jul 2001 14:33]: [...] You have a thread going on for a while, and want to quote it, but it is MANY lines. That is where I wonder what to do, since you could have more than a page-worth of just quoting, and it is all relevent. Still okay? Break it up. Intersperse your comments with the original text addressing points as they appear in the prior post. If you can, that is. Feel free to break up paragraphs =) Personally, I've never seen any need to leave much unedited quoting at the top of a message. But maybe I just hang around in the wrong circles? cheers, -- iain. http://eh.org/~koschei/ I am currently reading, amongst other things: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
netiquette (was: Re: Simple mutt question ... I think?)
On Wed, Jul 11, 2001, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Exactly - and that's (one of) the reasons, why TOFU (german, meaning: text above, full quote below) is *BAD*. It wastes bandwith and makes it harder to follow to what *EXACTLY* you're relying. It's simply neither necessary nor wanted nor is there anything gained by doing a TOFU style message. Just cut away all you're not replying to, and write right below what you quoted. It makes it a lot easier to follow. This brings up a question of mine, since we are on the topic. This comes up more in USENET than email, though. You have a thread going on for a while, and want to quote it, but it is MANY lines. That is where I wonder what to do, since you could have more than a page-worth of just quoting, and it is all relevent. Still okay? I do do it, since I think it is better than top-posting, but still ugly. Thanks. -Ken
Re: netiquette [ drifting OT ]
On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 10:30:49AM -0400, Ken Weingold wrote: You have a thread going on for a while, and want to quote it, but it is MANY lines. That is where I wonder what to do, since you could have more than a page-worth of just quoting, and it is all relevent. Unlikely. The only reason that I can think of for quoting a long message in full is if you are following up to a very old message which may have disappeared from news servers. This obviously does not apply to mailing lists. Remember that in most cases people reading your followup will have just read the preceding message. They don't need to see it again. John -- I wrote a few children's books... not on purpose. - Steven Wright _ I prefer encrypted mail (see headers for PGP key) Why encrypt? http://www.heureka.clara.net/sunrise/pgpwhy.htm _ PGP signature
Re: netiquette [ drifting OT ]
So sprach »John Arundel« am 2001-07-11 um 15:55:48 +0100 : Remember that in most cases people reading your followup will have just read the preceding message. They don't need to see it again. Exactly. Alexander Skwar -- How to quote: http://learn.to/quote (german) http://quote.6x.to (english) Homepage: http://www.digitalprojects.com | http://www.iso-top.de iso-top.de - Die günstige Art an Linux Distributionen zu kommen Uptime: 1 day 16 hours 11 minutes
Re: netiquette [ drifting OT ]
On Wed, Jul 11, 2001, Alexander Skwar wrote: So sprach »John Arundel« am 2001-07-11 um 15:55:48 +0100 : Remember that in most cases people reading your followup will have just read the preceding message. They don't need to see it again. Exactly. Usually yes, but there really are cases soemtimes where a lot more than the most recent post is necessary to understand the reply. Sad but true. :( -Ken -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]AIM: ScopusFest
Re: netiquette (was: Re: Simple mutt question ... I think?)
On (11/07/01 10:30), Ken Weingold wrote: This brings up a question of mine, since we are on the topic. This comes up more in USENET than email, though. You have a thread going on for a while, and want to quote it, but it is MANY lines. That is where I wonder what to do, since you could have more than a page-worth of just quoting, and it is all relevent. Still okay? I do do it, since I think it is better than top-posting, but still ugly. In news, this is necessary, because not all posts arrive on all servers at the same time. In mail, it's not the case, since mail is sent in a specific order, even from mailing lists. Ailbhe -- Homepage: http://ailbhe.ossifrage.net/
