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Posted by Bob on 02/01/06 14:02
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 08:20:45 +0000, Charlie+ <charlie@xxx.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 14:34:45 GMT, spam@uce.gov (Bob) wrote as
>underneath my scribble :
>
>No - please do top post!
>
>>Please do not top post.
If you want to reply to a message on Usenet, you should learn about a
number of rules to make the message as readable as possible.
As soon as you hit the reply button your program will place "> "
Before the original message. The purpose of these quotemarks is to let
other readers know what has been said before. Please stick to that
standard even if you know how to change it. Lots of newsreaders have
very nice features that only work if "> " is used.
Although this document is meant for Usenet its rules work as well for
e-mail and mailing lists. The essence of a message is to have clear
communication. A poorly constructed message is not only harder to read
for the direct recipient but also for other people that would like to
join the discussion. A well quoted message will show question and
response in the natural reading direction, which will make the message
much easier to read.
Let me show you step by step how quoting is done.
Remove the unnecessary parts of a message
It is recommended that you remove as much unnecessary information as
possible from the original message. Like the 'hello' and 'goodbye'
lines. They are a common form of politeness but do not add to the
essence of the message. Just like the signature. It's a nice
decoration but not when you reply to someone.
Respond below the questions
It is recommended that you reply below the topics. Just as with
questions from readers in a magazine, the journalists respond below
the question to follow the natural reading order.
In this way people won't have to read down and later on go back to the
top of the message. Remember that most people on Usenet read many
messages every day. And the responses mostly appear much later, so
they cannot always remember the exact message. It is also much easier
for the next person who wants to respond to your answer.
Reply below each paragraph
Digital texts have another big advantage: You can split the text and
respond below single lines and subjects.
Summaries
Sometimes people need many words to describe their question. In this
case it is a good idea to make a summary. To let the readers know it
is a summary construct them like this:
[snip: the summary]
Make sure people don't have to scroll down.
People usually don't like to scroll down before they can read the
start of your message. Use a bit of common sense to remove all of the
previous messages that are no longer relevant to the point you are
trying to make.
Examples
Now lets have a look at some examples.
Hi Erik,
Hotel 'xxx' is a good one, I have been there myself. Car
rental-company 'yyy'
is around the corner, couldn't be more perfect.
Cya, Peter.
Erik wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am looking for a decent hotel in Paris, not to expensive, preferably
near
> the center and easy reachable with public transport. I am also looking for
a
> car-rental company in Paris.
>
> Cya, Erik
As you can see the complete article is quoted and the reaction is on
top. This makes the article hard to read.
Here is the the author's original message:
Hi,
I am looking for a decent hotel in Paris, not to expensive,
preferably near the center and easy reachable with public transport.
I am also looking for a car-rental company in Paris.
Cya, Erik
Now the reply, doing it the right way:
Erik wrote:
> I am looking for a decent hotel in Paris, not to expensive, preferably
> near the center and easy reachable with public transport.
Hotel 'xxx' is really good, I have been there myself.
> I am also looking for a car-rental company in Paris.
Rentalcompany 'yyy' is around the corner. That's also very practical.
Cya, Peter.
As you can see this easily readable. Even if you have never read the
original message. No unnecessary hello's and goodbyes and the two
replies are directly under their questions.
Do you notice that Peter does not put 'hello' at the beginning of his
reply. That was not meant to be impolite. It is the customary form on
Usenet when following-up to a message.
Now suppose Peter did not know any car-rentals. His message would look
like this:
Erik wrote:
> I am looking for a decent hotel in Paris, not to expensive, preferably
> near the center and easy reachable with public transport.
Hotel 'xxx' is really good, I have been there myself.
Cya, Peter.
The car-rental lines have been removed. It would be rather pointless
to say something like: "Sorry, I don't know.". Not that it is
completely wrong, you should decide for yourself what is functional
and what is useless quoting.
People who do not know their subject very well tend to give too much
information to be on the safe side. If the original poster had used
many words to explain that he was looking for a hotel, you could
summarize the question. Put your summarization between square brackets
[] so readers can see at once that it is a summary.
Erik wrote:
> [snip: looking for a hotel in Paris]
Hotel 'xxx' is really good, I have been there myself.
Cya, Peter.
Multi-level quoting
Usenet discussions often are group discussions with more than two
participants. To keep these discussions easy to understand tidy
quoting is very important. You need to look ahead to understand what
is happening.
Pete wrote:
> Erik wrote:
> > I am looking for a decent hotel in Paris, not to expensive, preferably
> > near the center and easy reachable with public transport.
>
> Hotel 'xxx' is really good, I have been there myself.
I agree, but they are also often occupied. I would also recommend
hotel 'zzz'.
> > I am also looking for a car-rental company in Paris.
>
> Rentalcompany 'yyy' is around the corner. That's also very practical.
Traveling with a car in Paris is terrible if you don't know the road.
I would always travel with a cab.
//Rick
The odd thing is that the more you try to do about a quoted text the
worse it starts to look.
* Many newsreaders have the option to replace the quote-char ``>
'' with something else. It may look nice or original to change that
but the essence of the message is the text and not the quote-char. If
you change it you only add to the unimportant stuff people shouldn't
have to pay attention to. Also lots of newsreaders have nice features
that make different levels of quoting easier to read, like
colorisation. These features depend on your cooperation.
* The ``person x wrote:'' line is very useful for multilevel
quotings. Don't remove it. Some people put very much information in
this line. It may seem very nice but again, this is non-cooperative
and adds nothing to the discussion. Please keep it brief.
Wrapping
The way you present a piece of plain text to your audience is very
important. Some newsreaders don't understand plain-text and they
vaguely heard something about long lines. So they make sure your lines
never get any longer than, lets say, 72 chars. It results in texts
that look like this:
I just came back from Paris and I wanted to tell everyone how
happy
I am with your excellent advice. Hotel 'xxx' was not occupied,
it
was very clean and the service was excellent. I also want to
tell
that I met a person in that hotel who went to the same congress
as
me and he offered me a ride all the time so I never had to
worry
about the transport.
I Don't know about you but I don't even bother reading messages like
that. Got better things to do. Compare that message to:
I just came back from Paris and I wanted to tell everyone how happy I
am
with your excellent advice. Hotel 'xxx' was not occupied, it was
very
clean and the service was excellent.
I also want to tell that I met a person in that hotel who went to
the
same congress as me and he offered me a ride all the time so I never
had
to worry about the transport.
Would you believe it is exactly the same message? Fact is that people
tend to ignore sloppy messages and are attracted to the decent ones.
The closing argument
What you do on usenet and how you present your messages is up to you.
The only arguments I have to encourage decent quoting is readability.
You won't make many friends by driving too fast on the highway nor by
playing music very loud in the middle of the night.
The essence of usenet is cooperation and not originality and frivolity
in the way you present your messages. I agree this is not the highway
and you won't keep anybody awake by doing it your way. You just lose
your audience.
--
"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession.
I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."
--Ronald Reagan
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