Off-Topic RANT (was Re: [ga] Melbourne and nominations)

[Sandy Harris <sandy@storm.ca>]

This is not a personal attack on Jeff. I happen to have used one of his messages
as an example, but many others here routinely make the same blunders.

It is hard enough following discussion on the list without people failing to
follow well-known conventions in replying.

Don't put the reply at the top, followed by a quote of the whole message!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Jargon File's section on email quoting customs at:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/Email-Quotes.html 
puts it this way:

| Thanks to poor design of some PC-based mail agents, one will occasionally see
| the entire quoted message after the response, like this 
|
|     response to message
|     > entire message
|
| but this practice is strongly deprecated.

The main reason it is deprecated is that makes it impossible to see what you're
replying to, short of scanning through everything you've quoted. Anyone coming
late to the thread has to read the message bottom-to-top to make sense of it.

This is a remarkably stupid thing to do, and extremely discourteous to readers.
I know in many cases it isn't entirely the sender's fault. Outlook and Netscape
(at least) make this the default. However, you can change it, so please do.

In fact, you should almost never include the whole message in a reply, only
enough to provide context for your remarks. The failure to trim replies leads
to ludicrous wastes of space. For example, the message I'm replying to contains
four copies of the footer this mailing list software adds to each message, and
three copies of Jeff's sig.

See the mailing list Etiiquette FAQ:
http://www.gweep.bc.ca/~edmonds/usenet/ml-etiquette.html#SECTION00090000000000000000

Their section on replies:

|When replying, should I quote the previous message? 
|
| Most certainly. You should always provide some context to your replies so that
| people who may not have been following the thread closely, or who have other
| things on their minds will easily be able to determine what you're talking about. 
|
| However, when quoting, be very careful to edit the quoted sections down to the
| bare minimum of text needed to maintain the context for your reply. ...
|
| If your mail program wants to attach the whole message you're replying to on the
| end of your replies, please do not let it do this if you can possibly avoid it.

RIGHT!

| It is a good thing to include excerpts from previous messages with your replies
| to maintain a logical flow of discussion, but it is almost always a bad thing to
| include the entire text of a message being replied to, be it at the start or end
| of your reply. 
 
Please, people. Learn to construct replies sensibly.

My inclination here is to assume that anyone without enough net.clue to get this
right probably is not worth listening to. Of course, I won't actually assume
that, but it certainly influences my evaluation of various writers.
 
Jeff Williams wrote:
> 
> Joanna and all remaining assembly members,
> 
>   No privileged life at all for me, to be sure, Joanna.  Just hard work.
> That and work smarter is what it sometimes takes...

What is he talking about?

>   It is indeed terribly unfortunate that it now takes a significant amount
> of $$ to participate in the "ICANN Experience" and keep the current
> ICANN Board in line appropriately.  :(    As far as the participation
> part goes, if ICANN could incorporate a reasonable "Remote Participation"
> method, allot of this part of the problem would be eliminated altogether.
> But that doesn't seem to be a high priority on the ICANN boards and staffs
> priority list, and never has for some odd reason(s).
> 
> Joanna Lane wrote:
> 
> > Then indeed you lead a privileged life. Good for you..:-)
> > Joanna

Now we know what Jeff was refferring to.
But what is the antecedent of Joanna's "Then"?

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-ga@dnso.org [mailto:owner-ga@dnso.org]On Behalf Of Jeff
> > Williams
> > Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 3:41 AM
> > To: jo-uk@rcn.com
> > Cc: Roberto Gaetano; sidna@feedwriter.com; ga@dnso.org
> > Subject: Re: [ga] Melbourne and nominations

This whole block could be replaced with "Jeff Williams wrote:"
None of the rest of it matters to readers.

> > Joanna and all remaining assembly members,
> >
> >   Oh no, not an offer at all.  It is a question, Joanna...   I just find it
> > difficult that if someone wants to attend something badly enough, that
> > they cannot find the $$ to do so.  At least in my 40+ years of existence,
> > I have always found a way if I really wanted to....
> >

Aha! This is what the "Then" refers to.
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