On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 09:36:03 +0100
KatolaZ <katolaz@???> wrote:


> I don't know how I ended up appearing as the poster of that message,
> since I didn't say anything like that :) It's just the result of a
> very bad quoting exercise.

[snip]

> Guys please quote appropriately, or don't quote at all :D

Yes!

When some top post, and some bottom post, and some interleave post, and
people fail to trim irrelevant context, there are real consequences in
understanding. Inaccurate attribution is just one of many
misunderstandings resulting from all this stuff.

I'll interleave post (or bottom post short posts) til the day I die,
but I won't try to convince others to go along with me. All I'll say is
that a mailing list is supposed to be a group discussion in which the
whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and ambiguity is the enemy
of meaningful discussion.

Everyone: Top, bottom and interleave posters alike, should trim all
context not relevant to their response. To do otherwise leaves a
systemd-like entangled mess. Some context, the relevant context, should
remain, or else why not start a brand new thread? And if you top-post,
for gosh sakes don't say things like "I agree" or "that's why we need
free software." Because it's mission impossible to go through the whole
reverse order of six levels of context to figure ouw that is meant by
"that's" or to figure out what the poster agrees with. On the few
occasions I top-post (usually when the whole thread is top posted and
it would wreck the thread to do otherwise), I use redundancy by
substituting specific nouns for pronouns or articles.

SteveT

Steve Litt
April 2016 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21