[SC-Help] Re: Ping Mike Easter

[antioch]

Hello Garen
Yes I have seen and read the context of your reply already.
I have never had any problem reading posts in msn or other groups - except 
those that write without common grammar and syntax rules.  And those that 
use capitals for all their posts.
Even where some posts develop into two, three or four different threads, I 
find the majority easy to follow.
It is the lazy, and ignorant, who cant type basic english - that really 
pizzes me off.  Although those with a lesser grasp of english do get treated 
very well and with understanding, in my opinion.
But I agree, there should be basic ways that posts are written.
But I cant say if any particular set of groups follow these ways or not.  I 
doubt it.
Nice to have contact with you
Rgds
Antioch

"Garen Erdoisa" <scamper at trisk.com> wrote in message 
news:e4ds21$6j2$1 at news.spamcop.net...
> antioch wrote:
>> Hello Mike
>> Great news - my ISP is at last filtering out those .gif spam emails.
>> [snip]
>> P.S.
>> For the record - I do not agree with your comments on msnewsreader groups
>
> Just a comment: There are very good reasons for using the recommended 
> newsgroup quoting style. It has to do with making it easy for others to 
> understand what you are talking about when you post a reply to anything by 
> placing your comments into context.
>
> 1) If you do not quote at all in a reply you leave the reader guessing at 
> what you are replying to.
>
> 2) If you quote the entire message but then post your reply above or below 
> the the message you are responding to, and the message happens to be very 
> long and cover a lot of topics of discussion, again you leave the reader 
> guessing as to what part of the message your reply was for. This is why 
> you should put your replies into context.
>
> 4) Newsgroup quoting styles have been in use now for well over 20 years, 
> they are very well understood and accepted quoting practices among those 
> who participate in newsgroup threaded discussions. Because of that, if you 
> choose for whatever reason to not follow these accepted practices, then 
> you invite criticism. Quite often people who fail to follow accepted 
> practices in threaded discussions and choose to ignore request to start 
> doing so, will eventually be ignored completely and/or not taken 
> seriously.
>
> 5) It's bad form to quote the entire message of an OP (Original Poster) 
> especially so if that message is more than just a few lines in length, 
> unless you are doing a point by point response to the message and properly 
> contextualizing your responses as you go. You should [snip] any comments 
> you are not responding to.
>
> A lot of these styles are just adapted for computer use from accepted 
> academic and/or journalistic quoting and referencing styles that predate 
> computers by centuries.
>
> I'm making these comments partly to let you know that Mike Easter is 
> correct and is far from being alone in his thinking on these issues.
>
> Mike Easter is just more vocal than most about pointing out bad posting 
> styles. Most people who don't like such bad form would just put your posts 
> into a kill file and be done with it, or be annoyed at it but say nothing. 
> That is usually what I do.
>
> --
> Garen