OT email response format (was Re: TTL computing)

From: Christopher Smith <csmith_at_amdocs.com>
Date: Tue Apr 16 12:58:56 2002

> -----Original Message-----
> From: R. D. Davis [mailto:rdd_at_rddavis.org]

> Quothe Christopher Smith, from writings of Tue, Apr 16, 2002

> > because I just don't have the time to write a well-formatted reply,
> > and because it is not that offensive.

> Your point is? Let me take a guess: you feel that your time is more
> important than anyone else's time, disk space and bandwidth. As to it

I don't have any say over anyone else's time, but I certainly do my
best not to take much of it. If I can save them 20 minutes of work,
at the expense of reading a poorly formatted email, why not offer
the choice?

As for disk space, you'll note (I hope) that even the most terribly
formatted of my posts usually have all of the cruft clipped out of
them.

In addition you'll note that (yes, as a courtesy to anyone who might
be reading) I tend to strip out other peoples' formatting mistakes when
I reply too.

My point is that even though I usually do these things, and even though
I probably put more work into it than most other people due to this
piece of microsoft trash that I'm using as a mail client, I don't agree
that these rules ought to be enforced short of using social pressure
when it's appropriate. Did you really not get that from my last post?
(I'm not being condescending here, I'm really curious as to whether I
missed the mark in trying to lay that out...)

> not being offensive, let's just say that there are people in this
> world who don't bathe or use deodorants who don't think they're
> offensive to others.

Indeed, and I generally wouldn't associate with them for the health of
my own nose. If a poorly formatted post is that offensive to you, then
certainly you're welcome to not read it, and you will either gain time,
or lose one of a number of other things because of it. I won't say that
it's right or wrong.

> For many years most Usenet posts and e-mail did follow such rules,

Most still do, at least the ones that I read. Some don't, and of those,
most have no good reason not to -- I'll grant that. I still believe that
because exceptions to that rule exist, enforcement of the rule ought to
take that into account.

> then, the 'net became "popular;" the world wasn't perfect back then
> either, but most users of the 'net at that time were more likely to be
> more intelligent, or at least better educated, than the average
> person running loose in our society.

It's a shame that's not the case any more, certainly. So how about that
classic cmp UUCP network?

Chris



Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL

/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
 
Received on Tue Apr 16 2002 - 12:58:56 BST