On Thu, 2004-11-18 at 12:25 -0500, jack wallen wrote: > what i'm trying to say here is that things do evolve. if you just try to > force the old standards simply because they are the "old standards" then > you might possibly miss something pretty darned nifty. > I entirely agree with you. In this case, the "standard" for bottom or interleaved posting while trimming all unnecessary text is not being "forced" just because that's how we started. That mode of communication evolved because it was the one which proved to work best on one-to-many communications such as Usenet and mailing lists. It is being defended since it is (a) already an established local custom and (b) is still a technically, socially, and linguistically better method specifically for one-to-many communications such as this list. I top-reply to other individuals with whom I correspond because they prefer it that way, and in personal correspondence I bow to their preferences. I bottom-post on Usenet groups and mailing lists. I drive on the left side of the road in America, and on the right side in England. I speak the language of the country I visit. Why should a mailing list be any different? > i would like to think if a topic is important to you - you'll read it > regardless of where the quote is. There are almost *zero* topics on this list that are important to me. I can do 99% of what I want on my own, and my systems run Fedora like a charm. Every so often I throw in a question, and it gets answered quickly, courteously, and helpfully by another listmember. I read the rest of this list to try to help others, and I post between 50-100 messages each month doing that. Those who make it harder for me to help them by insisting that *I* adapt to *their* preferences which just happen to disregard this community's preferences... are not going to get any help at all. Cheers, -- Rodolfo J. Paiz <rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
