Am 31.10.2008 um 23:38 schrieb Brett Zamir:
Jonathan Schleifer wrote:Oh, and if we're already at it, you should stop using TOFU[1], which is considered very impolite on mailing lists.-- Jonathan [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOFU#Top-postingI personally strongly dislike bottom-posting, and the Wikipedia article you cite also indicates there are preference differences out there, including within mailing lists.
- If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just enough text of the original to give a context. This will make sure readers understand when they start to read your response. Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a message before seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855So there *IS* a standard for mailing lists. The Wikipedia article also states that this is the netiquette.
But instead of getting into a fruitless argument about what we think is the "right" way, how about we consider some way to solve the problem? Given that we already have the benefit of a formal hierarchical structure within XMPP via XML, how about a namespaced child of <message type=normal> (too late for <body>) to keep track of hierarchical content within a posting, which besides enabling posting order display to differ by user preference, would also more easily enable scripting to collapse or navigate a section of quotations, differentially auto-color replies from particular users or levels, etc.? Perhaps even XHTML-IM (XEP 0071) could be overloaded for such a purpose via <blockquote>'s @cite attribute (which could use an XMPP URI or email URI to indicate authorship) and/or the @class attribute (e.g., to distinguish citations from the "inner thread" from those outside of its context).
We're using e-mail here, not XMPP :).
For that matter, how about some mechanisms to enable forking of threads, even within a post? (along the lines of, and potentially supporting, wikis, discussion forums, blogs, versioning systems, etc., since, to my mind, these all should all only be slightly different in terms of protocol syntax so that one can easily treat one as (or convert one to) the other, as there is a lot of albeit inadequate convergence between them already). (Sorry I am not too well-informed on all of the numerous specs you all have marvelously already put out there, so my apologies to whatever extent this covers ground already covered.)
Then we'd need to switch mailing lists to XMPP. Would be a use scenario for PubSub :).
-- Jonathan
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