From: Mark Wilden <mark@...>
Date: 2008-05-28T02:03:46+09:00
Subject: Re: documentation for ruby?

On May 27, 2008, at 9:19 AM, Phillip Gawlowski wrote:

> Condensing what has been said by somebody else actually is a honored
> practice. Summing up the state of affairs (in spoken conversation)  
> helps
> focusing on what is being said by all parties and avoids the nasty  
> habit
> of getting side-tracked in minutiae or mired in tangents.

It may be an honored practice, but it doesn't usually happen because  
it's not usually necessary. See my example about ham and eggs.

> Consider that not every one is a) using a threaded email client, b)
> follows all threads all the time, and b) most people skim before they
> read (information filtering is a survival tactic).

I've already read what's been quoted. Since I read a -lot- of email, I  
generally read it no more than a day ago (I can't let things pile up).  
I don't need to read it again. All I need to know is what, generally,  
the guy's talking about. Most of the time, I can get that from what  
he's saying (plus my capacity to remember past events). If not, the  
subject line is usually enough. There is no need to recapitulate the  
entire conversation.

I also skim before I read. But what I skim is the new stuff, not the  
old stuff. If I have to scroll to do that, it makes me cranky.

> Just top posting might (*might*) be acceptable in a business/one-on- 
> one
> conversation, but is considered rude otherwise

Begging the question.

> Which is especially aggravating if it is a rather high signal / noise
> ratio (i.e. an AOL following a screen or two of content).

It actually sounds like we're in basic agreement. If people would only  
trim properly, this would be a non-issue (as far as I'm concerned).  
But I see a lot more knee-jerk responses to top-posting than to excess  
quoting.

///ark