Klarinet Archive - Posting 000063.txt from 2005/12

From: Benedikt Hochstrasser <tictactux@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: Trimming
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 06:23:01 -0500

I've been lurking in this thread for quite a while. I only subscribed
to the digest because I am not actively participating in a certain
thread.
Well. This is about the gazillionth recurrence of a
top-vs-bottom-posting thread, with the usual varying degrees of
name-calling and excessive quoting etc etc.
I am using online conversation tools for twenty-odd years now (on
whatever platform you can imagine), and the generally agreed-upon way
of Doing Things has been:

1. In order so save bandwidth and disk space, keep your quotings to a
minimum. For example, there is absolutely no need to quote the
original poster's sig with the marketing blurb. Same for quoting the
past 37 levels of a thread.

2. If you are having an email conversation with a single partner you
are free to choose whatever style you both like. But things are
different when dealing with an audience.

3. If you are having a conversation in a bulletin board of some kind
(be it mailing list, news server, web-based forum), quote in a way
that your single post is *self-sufficient*. This is extra work, but
see it as extra time to ponder over your answer, something that rarely
hurts. Just slapping the post which triggered your response at the end
of your blurb just tells your audience that you couldn't care less
whether or not others understand you. Bad marketing. I usually skip
badly quoting posts just because I am not in the mood to solve
brain-teasers.

4. Quoting in chronological order usually works best. Feel free to
clip the original post into single sentences, replying to each single
one:
> It won't work.
It will. Just try harder.
> My teacher recommended to make a fuss.
Your teacher is right. Teachers always are.

5. Do not assume anything. Not everyone is using Outlook, so using
rich text (the dreaded winmail.dat attachments) just reveals your
incompetence. Plain text still works best. And just because Outlook
quotes with a certain style doesn't automatically make it the "de
facto standard". And not everyone is using Windows...

I do not claim this way is the only possible way. It's just that I
never had problems with it. If this particular list favours a
completely different style, fine with me.
And somehow I thought it were about music and instruments, silly me.

A more verbose (and official) guideline is here:
http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html

Peace, folks. If you are into low blows, blow a low E on your horns. ;-)

--
Ben

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