Alfred Z. Newmane said:
You just demonstrated a point for my latest arguemnt. Why subject
It demonstrated a number of things, but none of them support
what you've been saying.
/everyone/ to one form or the other? Why not have one sane way of
/posting/, jsut as unpadded quoting, and /configure/ your reader to show
the /output/ how /you want/? Instead of forcing a message to be read how
a single /user/ wants it.
That is probably a significantly larger subject that you
imagine.
First, just *who* is going to decide which is the /one/ /true/
/way/? Somebody in Redmond WN that knows nothing about Usenet?
Or should we find someone with technical skills who has been
actively using Usenet for 90% of its life... For example Dik
T. Winters, who clearly does understand it rather well!
(Actually, Dik has probably had more influence on what is
appropriate formatting for Usenet that you might imagine.
Virtually everyone who provided useful technical commentary and
examples in the early and mid-1980's influenced design changes
and RFC's. Usenet was that small then, and Dik definitely was
influential.)
There are divergent philosophies on just where a message should
be formatted, and they cannot be intermixed. There are those
who want the reader/display software to format text according to
the available viewing resources. That philosophy has been the
basis for Apple and Microsoft GUI systems since day one. But it
is opposite the basic philosophy that others use (and in
particular that Usenet is based on), where the *sender* sets the
format. (E.g., line lengths, whitespace, blank lines, and a
basic set of attributes such as bold, italic, and underline.)
Clearly the two views do not mesh, but also just as clearly
there *are* valid uses and value for both, even to some degree
on Usenet. For example, color-coding different quote levels or
using different fonts might be considered a reader-side format
decision. In fact though, the measure of value in any such
feature (for Usenet) is how well it works *without* changing the
sender's formatting decisions.
On the other hand, attempts at introducing readers-side
formatting have caused some of the worst examples of trash on
Usenet. Look at the concept of sending one long line and
letting the reader format paragraphs for line length! That is
an abomination on Usenet, and news software that sends a message
that way are simply broken. There are many other examples too,
though some of them are subtle. Look at the odd ways that some
software treats the end of paragraphs, and for example removes
blank lines between them. *That* is exactly the reason such
concepts should be avoided.
In other words, formatting should be done on a /local/ scale, not a
/glabal/ one. Now what is so wrong with that?
Usenet has *never* followed that philosophy, and it grew from
systems that specifically rejected that philosophy. One reason
is because the people who designed it were techie types who were
and are very picky about how their messages are formatted! Look
at what Dik T. Winters has stated his reasons for formatting the
way he does! *He* wants to decide what his message looks like
when a reader views it. It *makes a difference*, and that is
something he, as the author, wants to control as much as
possible.
Usenet, at least through the first 10-15 years, was explicitly
designed to function the way Dik is manipulating it. I've been
reading his posts (now days with Gnus, but before that with trn,
an before that with rn) for more than 15 years and never once
even noticed that he was indenting the quoted text by one space!
Why? Because it is just *natural*. His formatting style, quite
by intent, makes his posts more readable!
(Or, it did until people came along and misconfigured their
broken software to reformat paragraphs that should not be
reformatted. But really... anyone who is that unaware of the
difference is *not* worth targeting the posted formatting for
anyway! So nothing is lost if they don't see a proper message.)
