Posted by NRen2k5 on 11/16/61 11:36

Michelle Steiner wrote:
> Considering that it's been in use as a standard term for at least a
> decade, and you're so hot on standards, why should we have thought
> that you wouldn't know what it means?

Because usenet is a ghost town and most kids my age have never been on
it, let alone know what any of your old language means.

> Maybe you should stick to those groups in that case.

I am. The whole reason we're even having this quarrel is because some
people get all hot under the collar when others crosspost to their group
and don't follow their draconian standards.

> How about because very few people here like it, and if you continue
> to do it, you'll wind up in a lot of kill files? (You do know what a
> kill file is, don't you? Seeing as how you didn't know what top
> posting is, I thought I'd better ask, especially since someone once
> told me that he's reporting me to the police because I said that I
> was putting him in a kill file.)

Fortunately I do know what it is.

People want to ignore me? I call that ignorance.

> It still is, even in 2006.

Sorry, usenet doesn't belong to you, and you're wrong.

If the coding and newsreader implementation of it don't make it a
standard, then what does? Your majesty's decree? Flying butt-monkeys?
The number 42?

> As I said, "the hell with everyone else."

The hell with you; you're not everybody. Self-righteous is what you are.

> If I were the only one telling you that, that might be true; however,
> you have many people telling you the same thing.

Two other people does not constitute many. Certainly not when I have
twenty staying absolutely silent.

> There are more news readers that do not handle HTML messaging than
> there are that do. There are more people using those news readers
> than there are people who use those that do handle HTML.

And do they have any clue what they're doing?

> Therefore, when you post an HTML message, most people will either see
> the raw HTML code and not be able to read your messages, or they
> will see messages without the formatting.

I never post in HTML-only. Whenever I post with HTML, it's also in
plain-text.

> The former will probably eventually kill file you--in any event, they
> will not be reading your messages.

A shame, really, if it had a grain of truth to it. In such a situation,
any sane intelligent person will say "well, here's something my
newsreader can't handle. My newsreader mustn't be too hot". Reality is,
people aren't quite so clueless that they'd rather killfile somebody
than get a working newsreader.

> The latter won't see the formatting anyway, so there's no need to
> include it for them.

I don't consider "them". I consider everybody. Hence, my messages are
either plain-text-only, or plain-text-and-HTML. They're *never* HTML-only.

> Oh, by the way, your italicizing text (I assume that what you meant
> by using those slashes.)

Yes, it is. Either your newsreader really is trash, or you need to
loosen up some of those settings.

> is typographically wrong. If you had meant to emphasize, you should
> have bold faced them. Check any book on typography to see when
> italics are appropriate. (Essentially, they're used for prologues,
> epilogues, titles of books, magazines, movies, etc., and the names of
> ships, aircraft, spaceships, etc., and for not much, if anything,
> else.)

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I've been a spelling/grammar nazi for as
long as I can remember, but I never knew there was such a thing as a
typography nazi. ;)

Honestly though, I will keep it in mind.

- NRen2k5

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