🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thursday, in article <Ek9Y8RAgAsxwEADq@turnpike.com>
     richard@turnpike.com "Richard Clayton" wrote:

> In article <818271966snz@wash.demon.co.uk>, John Washington
> <john@wash.demon.co.uk> writes
>
> >If you can quote something from a document that strongly
> >discourages it (e.g. the kind of comments that netiquette
> >guides make about 4+ line .sigs) I'll chew on it.
>
> "Son-of-RFC1036" 4.3.2 Body Conventions has a SHOULD requirement for
> using ">". NB: no other characters, just ">". He notes that ">" should
> go onto empty lines as well so that reading agents can easily implement
> "skip all quoted text".
>
> >Client support?  What's that about?  I just find these
> >quotes visually helpful.  And what does FIDO have to do
> >with this?
>
> this style is common (I am told) in FIDO systems. I understand from
> other discussions that there is header information which makes it easier
> to determine what initials to use, and the editors have suitable code
> for handling the nesting.

I took your earlier advice to go and take a look at news.(something).

I'm not sure what you were hoping I would find, and I'm not being
deliberately obtuse, but I found the trip rather amusing on two
counts.

1. There are a number of posts in that group using this style of
quoting.  No surprise, really, this crops up all over Usenet
in varying degrees, and tends to be more frequent in the 'techier'
groups, presumably where some users have been able to roll-their-own.

So, the style is common on FIDO, where presumably the technology
is readily available.  It is patchy in Usenet, where the technology
is rare, but when available, appears to be grabbed eagerly enough.
Evidently some (not insignificant) proportion of users welcome
this feature, for reasons we can only guess at.

How often, Richard, have you handed down tablets of stone in this
group, pointing out to people that, just because they wish
something be so, Usenet is not going to change overnight to
accomodate them?  Rather frequently, I believe.

I think your desire for lone '>' quoting, and even Henry Spencer's
not-an-RFC, are just two expressions of personal opinion, with
merit certainly, but as likely to stop the tide as King Canute.

You may convince me (I'm still open to dropping my use of
ID quoting), and you may convince me not to pass on my code.
But how will that serve your cause?  Rob is well capable of
doing this himself.  We're not talking sub-atomic physics here.
And there are many thousands more like him.

2. (and this really had me ROTFL'ing)

While reading the group you sent me to, I stumbled across
a post that implied the Turnpike newsreader has a feature
that highlights quoted parts of articles.  Ho ho ho!  Do
I smell a hidden agenda here?  Do you need some help with
the programming to detect ID style quoting?  :-)

Even if you like GUIs with everything shown in different
colours like a Xmas tree (I don't, but I accept that some
do), this doesn't strike me as a good reason to hold back
a better way of quoting.

Instead, you should be looking at the positive ways forward.
From what you've said about FIDO (of which I'm otherwise
ignorant), there are other things that assist with handling
such quoting.  I don't know what they are, or how they might
translate to Usenet, but my guess would be that something like
an "X-Quoted-IDs: RC>, BB>" in my header would be rather handy
for newsreaders, if it were widely adopted.

Yes, of course this means change (or addition, anyway).
And, of course not everyone who uses unusual quoting
styles will take it up.  However, proposing it now, while
this style is relatively rare in newsreaders, gives it
a much better chance of it being widely implemented,
instead of trying to shut the stable door later.  For,
make no mistake, this style of quote WILL become
commonplace.

You don't believe me?  Imagine Turnpike's marketing
droid comes to you and says "We want this neat new
feature that some of our customers and prospects have
asked for, ID-quoting".  Are you going to turn round
and refuse to put that in?

Maybe you are going to refuse.  I have no doubt of
the strength of your principles and integrity.

And what will then happen when your less principled
competitors start including that feature?

--
John Washington