[Klug-general] Mailing list etiquette, again

[Shish]

> I think the idea of forcing some kind of etiquette on people in this 
> list is absurd.

I think etiquette is *always* a good idea. In this particular case,
mailing list message layout etiquette is there to help people
communicate effectively. If you don't want to communicate, why be a
list member in the first place?

Also, how was force suggested and / or applied?


On a meta-point: if you'd quoted a specific bit of my text to
illustrate my use and / or suggestion of force, then followed it with
your comment, then I would have no need to ask what you're talking
about :P

Another possibility is that you're reading the entire message, then
writing the entire reply, without referring back to double check that
what you're replying to is something that I've *actually* said. In this
case, your thought process would be helped by taking specific quotes,
and replying to them one at a time.

See why I think "quote, reply, quote, reply" is a good idea yet? It
helps both reader *and* writer :P


> This is supposed to be a community group

How can you have community if people are unable to understand what
other people are saying?

In the case of the original message, I really, honestly did think that
it was spam -- first thing I did after glancing at the overall layout
and reading the first sentance was scroll down to the bottom, to see
what the image attachment was trying to sell K-LUGgers. I was shocked
to find that where normally randomly generated text is followed by an
obfuscated image pushing some company's stock, in this case there was a
bottom quote. Then I scrolled back up, and read the message from the
top to the bottom (as is the natural order for English readers), at
which point it still made no sense. Then after sitting and staring and
thinking "WTF?", I scanned the other messages in the list to find where
this branch had snapped off of another thread, and after re-reading
those, I realised that the message was actually two messages at the
same indentation level, with the second one coming first. Then I read
the second message, then scrolled up to read the message which came
after it but was written before it, and then I finally understood what
the sentance meant.

I have no idea why someone thinks that spending 5 minutes doing the
above is a good thing, and spending 5 seconds following etiquette in
order to make their message instantly understandable is a bad thing :-/


> Post sensibly

You think the idea of forcing some kind of etiquette on people in this
list is absurd, remember? :)


> ignore mistakes and errors

Personally, if I make a mistake, I wish to know about it. How else will
I learn?

Given that you think pointing out mistakes is a mistake, and you're
pointing that out to me rather than ignoring it, that shows that you
support my view and defeat your own :P

<flame serverity=":P">
Hint: before composing your reply, you may wish to read this:
http://tinyurl.com/2v6hf5
</flame>

<defeat type="self">
In particular, you may wish to note example 1 from the link above, and
combine it with the fact that this email has taken 2 hours to write >_<
</defeat>

(Though I hope that people will listen to my guidelines for effective
communication, and I'll save much more than 2 hours in the long run /o/)

    -- Shish