David said:
What are you talking about?
I have quoted precisely what I was talking about; an attribution of
quoted material to an individual and material included in that quote
that was never written by that individual.
"-Show quoted text-" is obviously auto-generated Google BS.
Obvious to who, and when? Google groups' programmers are clearly out of
their depth and sinking fast. They have written something sufficiently
beyond their understanding of it that whenever they tie off one loose
thread at one point another (or several) unravels somewhere else. The
notion of their not showing quoted text in Usenet threads is wrong to
start with (as we quote to provide context for responses, and that
context is usually significant), their approach to hiding quotes inept
(they hide the closing brace in many posted script examples), and there
is certainly absolutely no reason why text that they have added to the
user interface should find itself being automatically included in
pre-marked quoted material for a response. But the bottom line remains
that it was you who posted this misrepresentation of what you were
responding to and so you who are responsible for it.
And as to how "obvious" it is, or will be; two years ago google were not
hiding quoted material when they displayed Usenet posts, and in two
years time they may not be doing so again (or using a different
indicator of doing so). Or google may have degenerated so far that
people prefer a different archive when researching Usenet posts. So it
may be anything but obvious in a historical context. And that still
assumes that people using Usenet now are also familiar with google
groups. Many are but it is unlikely that all are, and certainly it would
be inappropriate to assume that all were even if that were true.
Nobody thinks "Whebz" wrote that.
Today maybe not, over time who can say.
The specific impact in this case is irrelevant. The principal is what is
important. When you attribute a quote to someone then the marked quote
should be what they actually wrote (with omitted sections marks so that
it is clear that edits have been made (with the exception of signatures
which should always be edited out and so doing that needs no
indication)). Anything else is disingenuous at best and libellous at
worst.
Richard.