🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <818421977snz@wash.demon.co.uk>, John Washington
<john@wash.demon.co.uk> writes

[on the JW> quoting scheme]

>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.

You have a point here. I think it unlikely that trn and tin will be
using this feature in the near future. Elm does not use it. None of the
Mac newsreaders use it, Agent does not use it, Netscape (some people
seem to believe that to be a newsreader) does not use it. I have no
doubt that some relatively obscure clients use it... you may also have
seen me argue that Usenet is a broad church and it is almost impossible
to make statements about it which are universally true.

>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.

I seem to recall that Canute was trying to demonstrate to courtiers that
there were limits to his power. The tale changes in the telling. For
myself, I see an increasing standardisation on platforms ... and that
none of the main players are adopting this style. Spencer is indeed
hoping for change in requiring ">" and not other characters... I think
that he, perhaps alone, may have sufficient power to make an actual
change... but it is perhaps too late for that.

>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.

Useful statements about Usenet are measured in millions - I think you're
beginning to understand my point.

>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.

as indeed does (Free)Agent. Indeed I'm sure a lot of other programs do
too. It's extremely useful and I recommend it to all.

>  Ho ho ho!  Do
>I smell a hidden agenda here?  Do you need some help with
>the programming to detect ID style quoting?  :-)

It's very kind of you to offer, but it seems moderately straightforward
to implement. Automatically deciding which new two/three character pair
to choose, by inspecting the poster's name, is a little more
challenging. BTW I think I'd rather you put in the leading space which
is (in some sense) "standard" in the FIDO world, and avoids various
detection problems.

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

It will be messed up by the rest of the denizens of Usenet who read news
articles with clients which put ">"s on the front without thinking too
hard as to how appropriate this is. This adds an extra complication to
the next "clever" client which tries to do some unpicking.

richard                                (unaccountably in my front room)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Though the future's there for anyone to change; you know it seems; it's
easier sometimes to change the past: fountain of sorrow; jackson browne