Klarinet Archive - Posting 000077.txt from 2005/12

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] re[kl]: Trimming
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 11:26:53 -0500

Two things: here's the first:

On 12 Dec, George Kidder <gkidder@-----.org> wrote:

> The following, quoted in its entirety, is one reason for top-replying. We
> often see "replies" like this which have no new material, probably due to
> some slip-up by the replier. If the new material were always on the top,
> one wouldn't have to search the bottom as well to see if there WAS a reply
> to read.

In fact it's the quoting chevrons that are screwed up in the post you quoted,
which does contain new material from Tom Wood.

I reproduce below his post that you were commenting on:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark Charette wrote:

>Gary Van Cott wrote:
>
>>I agree. I have to honestly say that in more than 10 years of using
>>lists, I have never seen anything the suggested adding posts at the
>>bottom was preferred in any context
>
>
>Every list I'm on prefers posting below trimmed text. But then again,
>almost all the lists I belong to are technical and have been around for
>25 years or more (I've only been using lists for the past 20 years or
>so). Top posting on many of those lists will start a flame war _and_
>cause the offender to be ignored by the old-timers. It's tradition that
>has become etiquette. Perhaps the newer lists don't have the tradition.
>
>It is also possible that 15 or 20 years ago the options were fewer.
>Email software might have put comments following the earlier posts by
>default...............

Tom W

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It's just that the last paragraph in this should not have appeared behind
chevrons.

How do I know this? Well, if you think about what was being said, you can
see that the last paragraph doesn't logically belong with the previous one by
Mark.

The comment has no force, though; the idea of the options being 'fewer' due
to a different 'default' position for the cursor in older software doesn't
make sense, even if it were true. You would have the same number of options
in either case.

Because surely, if you're going to quote at all, the cursor goes where you
put it as you begin editing -- just as the pen goes where you put it as you
begin writing.

The second thing is this: almost anyone who wants to make serious replies
(including quoting), and has to use webmail interfaces without proper
editors, adopts a different quoting convention: see Kevin Fay's posts, for
example.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
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