Re: [SLE] Have you seen this? -- TOFU explained

• Previous message: Anders Johansson: "Re: [SLE] R: [SLE] Administrator root can't login"
• In reply to: Philipp Thomas: "Re: [SLE] Have you seen this? -- TOFU explained"
• Next in thread: Anders Johansson: "Re: [SLE] Have you seen this? -- TOFU explained"
• Reply: Anders Johansson: "Re: [SLE] Have you seen this? -- TOFU explained"
• Reply: Jake: "[SLE] [Re: was [SLE] Have you seen this? -- TOFU explained] Now; something good comes from a flame war"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

To: suse-linux-e@suse.com
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 13:26:32 -0500

On Sunday 07 March 2004 07:38, Philipp Thomas wrote:
> And the german suse-linux list does
> show that things can be different and more pleasant if enough people do
> agree on certain rules for a mailing list.

I presume that this statement means that the Germans use
bottom-posting exclusively, and everyone German is happy.

However, while the German list is (just assuming... I don't
speak German) populated by posters from Germany, Austria,
Switzerland and... (anywhere else?) the SLE list is populated
by a much wider sampling of participants, from all over the
world. There must easily be 40 countries represented here.

I'm not suggesting that TOFU is acceptable, just pointing out
that, as a general rule, general rules work better in homogeneous
populations than in heterogeneous populations.

Just as a worldly example, and please don't take offense,
uniform social policies are more likely to work in a country
like Sweden (where you could count the number of black,
Arabic, Indian, and Chinese citizens on your fingers and toes...
and have some fingers and toes left over), while uniform
social policies tend to fail grandly in melting-pot countries
like the USA. So it is with communities like mailing lists.

Continuing as devil's advocate, I noted that somebody compared
contrasting posting styles with ignoring the rules of the road.
Um, if you ignore the local rules about which side of the road
to drive, the result is inevitably death, dismemberment and
severe property damage. I don't think that's quite what
happens when posters ignore/misunderstand preferences
on a mailing list.

One approach that deals with such disagreement (on other
lists) is that the list-masters make a decision, publish it, and
stick to it. So, every new poster gets a copy of the rules, to
which they agree, at sign-up time. Every poster gets a monthly,
automated reminder, along with other administrivia, in one
compact package (that they can filter if they wish).

Personally, I find the TOFU/MUFO wars amusing, but almost
irrelevant. As some other posters have noted, the real
problem is failure to trim and edit when one posts replies.
THERE is the main argument against top posting. If you
just hit "reply", then your mail program makes a copy
of the full post and puts the cursor at the top. If you just
start typing, it it's far too easy to forget to trim all that
stuff below your own golden words... that's how my occasional
accidents happen, though I try to be careful. (I also try
to consistently bottom-post in this list).

If there's just one or two paragraphs that "need" replying
in a message, maybe the best approach (a la KMail) is to
just highlight the important text first, then hit "Reply".
In that fashion, only the highlighted text is brought into
your response. Other mailers should offer that, if they
don't already.

When I want to reply to several sections of somebody's
mail, I make two replies. One has nothing highlighted,
so everything is brought into the new (candidate) message
and given the proper indents and "> >" attribution
marking. The other reply is created by highlighting just a
single character in the original post, so that a blank reply
candidate is created (but with the headers and threading
info intact). Then, I copy and paste the relevant material
from the bloated candidate message to the empty one
(with all the proper "> >" attribution) and send only the
streamlined one. If I remember to erase the "To:" field
in the discardable candidate message, then I make it less
likely that I'll accidentally send it to the list.

If anybody's still reading, I hope that added to the discussion.

Regards,

Kevin

-- 
Check the headers for your unsubscription address
For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com
Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com
Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

• Previous message: Anders Johansson: "Re: [SLE] R: [SLE] Administrator root can't login"
• In reply to: Philipp Thomas: "Re: [SLE] Have you seen this? -- TOFU explained"
• Next in thread: Anders Johansson: "Re: [SLE] Have you seen this? -- TOFU explained"
• Reply: Anders Johansson: "Re: [SLE] Have you seen this? -- TOFU explained"
• Reply: Jake: "[SLE] [Re: was [SLE] Have you seen this? -- TOFU explained] Now; something good comes from a flame war"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]