Posted by Charlie+ on 02/02/06 08:19

On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 14:02:06 GMT, spam@uce.gov (Bob) wrote as
underneath my scribble :

Gottabe a pillock! A quick scroll down your unreadable post unread
shows the good reason for topposting - PLONK spam@uce.gov (Bob)
unread.


>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.

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