Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
They are realistic about people's use of email.
Or there acceptance of broken software/sites.
I don't complain about the ettique of others. I don't mind that they break topics, use poor readers, etc... I deal with it. It's not worth bothering a list about.
In fact, on some lists, I'm even chastized for bottom posting! And only a minority of people know that bottom posting _is_ "good practice" in the history of Internet mail. So at what point does "majority ignorance" become "majority rule"?
Please tell me that -- because there are so many _conflicting_ "good practices" out there that I can only rely on what I have known after 16 years on the Internet.
Here's the deal ... it's much easier for me to just do what they do -- respond and not care about subject, recipients, editing out/cutting content, use Message-ID honoring mail readers (Yahoo Mail and Evolution), etc...
But I take the time to do that, for the _benefit_ of SMTP archives. It is the same in the case of NNTP readers as well. That is the Internet I was taught back in 1989 on-ward, and is not defined by mail readers that top post, ignore Message-ID, cultivate bad response habits, don't let you easily cut out quotes, etc...
Of all the things I do that people appreciate -- bottom posting (which seems to be giving way to more and more top posting), cutting out excess quotes (even if I replace it with my own verbage), etc..., understand I at least take the _time_ to try to apply "good practices."
So I find it pathetic when people want to nitpick on things I do that are _only_ an issue with _poor_ mail readers. Or they want to complain about verbage that someone _else_ might actually appreciate. Because in the end, I'm putting forth the effort to "balance" the "best practices" I know of as a whole among people who _conflict_ in what they think is right/wrong.
Which is something I _never_ go out of my way to complain about with regard to others. I am not so insensitive that I feel erked by little practices. I'd rather focus on the discussions and questions and help, instead of stopping to use so-called ettique as a method of just complaining about someone.
This will be my last post on the matter.