[ic] Lazy posters (Was: Add new fields for the products)

[Cameron G]

> Quoting Kevin Walsh (kevin at cursor.biz):
> > >>> _______________________________________________
> > > >>> interchange-users mailing list
> > > >>> interchange-users at icdevgroup.org
> > > >>> http://www.icdevgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/interchange-users
> > > >>
> > > >> _______________________________________________
> > > >> interchange-users mailing list
> > > >> interchange-users at icdevgroup.org
> > > >> http://www.icdevgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/interchange-users
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > interchange-users mailing list
> > > > interchange-users at icdevgroup.org
> > > > http://www.icdevgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/interchange-users
> > > >
> > How would anyone expected to follow the above mess if they found
> > it an a mail list archive search?
> >
> > Please follow the interchange-users posting guidelines, which are
> > regularly sent to this list:
> >
> >   1. Trim unnecessary text from your followups.  Did you really need
> >      to quote three sets of links to the listinfo page in your article?
> >
> >   2. Post your followup text within some sort of context, i.e:
> >
> >              Quoting user1 (<user1 at icdevgroup.org>):
> >              > Some limited text that will give context.
> >              >
> >              Your reply.
> >
> >      instead of:
> >
> >              Your reply, lazily put at the top.
> >
> >              Quoting user1 (<user1 at icdevgroup.org>):
> >              > A whole big blob of previous articles, including
> >              > signatures and all.
> >
> > You'll find that, if you post properly, then more people will read
> > your articles and you may even get more responses.  I stop following
> > threads when people top-post their followups - even if the followup
> > is in response to one of my articles.  I know lots of others who do
> > the same.
> >
>
> Hear hear. My time is valuable, to myself if no one else. I will not
> spend it trying to figure out the posts of people too lazy to do
> things properly.
>
> Most people who use MS Outlook or some other similarly-crippled
> mail agent end up doing this, partly because their software makes
> it so hard to do things properly.
>
> My advice to these people is to learn some editor well, any editor,
> then get a mail client that invokes *your* editor to edit the mail
> message instead of using some brain-dead internal editor like Notepad.
>
> -- 
> Mike Heins

It's not just the IC list that works like this either. As just one example,
the linux kernel mailing list requires their posters to post in a coherent
and sensible fashion. Read http://www.tux.org/lkml/#s3-9 for more info.

I know i've been guilty of a top posting before, but that's usually a side
effect of being temporarily undercaffinated, AND i'm one of those who uses a
braindead mail client. Under those circumstances, i've always ignored my own
top posting, which seems in some way to actually be an attempt to cancel out
acknowledgement of my own existance. This has led to numerous (unproductive)
hours of Strange Loop contemplation, trying to decide whether i'd top posted
in order to deny my own self, or if because i don't really exist, i top
posted. Don't let this happen to you, kids!

 In the initial signup mail, is the whole top posting thing spelt out really
clearly? Perhaps some sort of section saying "WARNING, WARNING, WARNING,
YOUR POSTS WILL BE IGNORED AND YOUR CHILDREN CAST INTO THE BURNING PITS OF
HELL IF YOU DO NOT READ AND FOLLOW THESE GUIDELINES", etc.