VK said the following on 4/5/2006 7:39 AM:
The question is why is Google doing it? I dare to guess it is not
because of some anti-Usenet conspiracy. The infospace pullution is one
of biggest problems of Internet. It is so often hard to find some
really iseful info because it is being burried in the "noise" which is
difficult/impossible to filter out even by the best search engines. In
this aspect quoting definitely adds more "infonoise".
If Google wants to minimize the space it needs to store data, then they
can start there own forum. But, they are trying to change a very long
standing procedure in Usenet for there own benefit. The ends don't
justify the means.
X wrote:
I have a problem A
-----
Here is solution B
-----
<snip>
A have a question about your solution.
-----
Here is my answer.
etc.
It is easy to predict that the search engine will get a hard time to
get the *right* post on request "problem A solution". At the same time
getting the right *thread* will ensure that (after some extra reading)
the right post will be found.
No, it will find the right post. Google particularly. It doesn't return
individual hits for the same thread, it returns one hit to that thread
(test it).
Just don't shoot - first listen! ;-) I am not calling for "drop the
quoting". But IMHO the traditional Usenet quoting rules should be
changed to the most fat-free variant.
Now, take the reverse side. The people that are in the best position to
actually give good answers don't use Google Groups to post. And they
have become accustomed to quoting, for very good reasons. If a post
isn't quoted, then I have two choices:
1) Ignore the thread
2) Go find the thread and read the entire thread to get an idea about
the conversation.
If the "experts" (I use that term loosely) continue to ignore threads
then Usenet goes to hell. You end up with a bunch of crap answers. And
Usenet is not for the benefit of Google, it is for the benefit of its
users. And the users benefit the most from quoting.
Let me give the flip side of your example though:
X wrote:
I have a problem A
-----
Y wrote:
Here is solution B
-----
X wrote:
A have a question about your solution.
-----
Y wrote:
Here is my answer.
Now, let's assume that each of those four posts are made on different
days. And, that each post is 40 lines long. If I want to know what the
answer was for, I now have to read four posts instead of one to find
out. How is that more efficient than reading this?