Klarinet Archive - Posting 000062.txt from 2005/12

From: Tom Flavel <tom@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] re[kl]: Trimming
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 19:43:46 -0500

On 10/12/2005 23:28:15, Tony Pay wrote:

[snip]

>
> Careless *anything* is horrible.
>
> > The only reason I can think of for doing it is a long discussion with many
> > inputs being forwarded to someone who has never seen it.
>
> I don't agree at all. Parts of arguments need to be addressed with
> appropriate agreements or counter-arguments. The world is not to be reduced
> to your isolated opinions.

There's another reason in action: replying underneath allows comments to
be interspersed with the relevant parts of the origional email. I'm sure
there's a name for this form (I've heard it called usenet style, to
address each point your counterpart is making in turn).

Paragraphs broken into bullet-point form like this lend them especially
well to addressing technical subjects with clarity. It's also handy for
writing for the web, since it aides scan-reading.

This reduces ambiguity from missing contexts (I'm not particuarly good
at inference, so I tend to use this form for personal correspondence,
too).

I view this list as consisting mostly of technical subjects. Moreso, the
non-technical subjects here seem to be discussed (for the most part!) in
a logical and relativley precise manner.

"Technical" does not mean the subject is limited to the domain of
computers! One aspect of being "technical" is that the participants want
each of their points to be individually addressed - sometimes seperatley
from their other points. Responding inline and quoting each point
provides that mechanism.

That's one reason I think this is relevant here; there are plenty of
other reasons, and I'm sure plenty in opposition, as we've seen.

The opposing form of this is *not* top-posting; that's not diametrically
opposite. The opposing form (as far as I can see) is to write a response
with no quoting at all; exactly as one would for personal correspondence
on paper. I'll call this a "solid block" reply.

That solid block form may be either below (as this email is), or above
the previous correspondence.

(For what it's worth, I think this lists works rather well :)

Regards,

--
Tom

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