Evolution

[Thiers Botelho]

On 5/29/06, Alan McKinnon <alan at linuxholdings.co.za> wrote:

> On Monday 29 May 2006 00:37, Thiers Botelho wrote:
>
> > Since you particularly dislike intermingling text on postings I
> > wouldn't do that when replying to yours, even when considering it
> > would easier for the understanding of the flow of ideas.
>
> Looks to me like we are using different meaning of "intermingling"
> here. I was referring to a mixture of top and bottom posting from
> different people which is incredibly messy. I don't have a name for
> this "style", I consider it's a very bad thing.
>
> OTOH are you talking about inserting your replies to each comment I
> make below my comment (like we are both doing here)? This is a very
> good thing

Yep that's what I was talking about. Not many people do it right though.

> > > A mailing list like this is the very place where bottom post
> > > rules MUST be enforced.
> >
> > Since I'm new to the list I'd be interested in learning what
> > mechanism is used here to achieve this enforcement.
>
> There's only one way - members enforce the rules between themselves.
> It's the same thing as if you persistently did something very rude at
> work - after a while someone would point it out and ask you to stop.

Thanks, that's BTW what I expected. What leads to the next point below  . . .

> What's lacking is a clear statement of what the local rules are. A
> good system is an automated post once a week/fortnight/month that
> lays them out - in common with most lists I'm on, that's not done
> here.

I was once on a heavy-traffic list (might be Fedora-users, not so sure
about). And a very looooong thread developed, on the verge of a
flamewar over pros and cons of rigidly enforcing netiquette rules on
that list.

The discussion came to an end after one prominent member pondered
that, in his point of view, netiquette rules should be pointed out to
misbehavers, but it would be a useless waste of energy to concoct
stronger disciplining efforts to pursuit a broader compliance.

Many interesting reasons were given for that advice. I don't recall
any more which they were but right now I can think of 2 good reasons
for being uh, er . . . "lenient" :

1. New people enter the list every day (and a good number abandon ship
also). The enforcing initiatives would have to be exercised over and
over - ad infinitum - so as to reach most of the non-disciplined
newcomers.

2. Such enforcing initiatives tend to degenerate into flamewars (I've
seen that happen way maaaany times, since when I had no Internet and
used a dial-up long-distance text-only BBS at late night at 9600 bps).
Side effects of these exchanges are the constant nagging of old-timers
and the frequent scaring-away of newcomers. Both groups have many
people which observe the netiquette themselves, aren't overly
concerned about others' netiquette (or lack thereof) and end up more
annoyed by the enforcers than by the sinners.

> Maybe it's time for a vote on this matter to get agreement on it.

Maybe . . .   :)

> Alan McKinnon

Thiers