Re: /opt/ again (was Re: FreeBSD-like approach for Debian? [was: ...])
Wednesday, September 15, 1999, 5:45:24 AM, Marek wrote:
> * Steve Lamb said:
>> Again, please do not reply above. It is rude.
> No, it might be inconvenient for YOU, but it's not rude. You are rude, all
> the time.
Goody, I get to use this. Thank Tom Christiansen for this one. It was
written with Usenet in mind but most of these translate right over to mail.
Enjoy.
-----
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
To send better messages, please trim and summarize what you're replying to,
and integrate your quoted text with the body of your message. Don't just put
everything at the end. This isn't Jeopardy. People expect question-and-answer,
not answer-and-question responses.
LONG STORY:
Wouldn't you like to make your messages easier for others to read and
understand? If so, I have some news posting tips for you. If not, just ignore
this. (Of course, if you don't want your messages easier to read and
understand, it's not clear why to bother to send them in the first place. :-)
I'm going to take a bit of time to explain this, because newcomers to Usenet
often lack the cultural background were I to send a superbrief message.
Here's the issue: you appear to have quoted the entire message to which you
were replying. Worst of all, you have done so by merely appending the complete
message at the bottom. Folks are used to reading the original material first,
then the follow-up. That's why it's called a "follow-up", you know. :-)
If all you want to do is forward a copy of the message, that's one thing, but
here you seem to have just blindly pasted the complete old message at the end
without providing any content. This is neither a proper public followup nor
even a decent private reply. Here's why.
First of all, this is massive overkill -- you're supposed to trim your quoted
text to only what you're replying to. Otherwise you'll probably violate the
netiquette target quoting percentage of 50%. See below. This isn't really an
issue of space (I know that a few bytes here and there mean less today than 20
years go), so much as it is of integrating your comments with the old material
for continuity.
Second, putting everything at the bottom does little good. It doesn't provide
the proper context. It's far too late. When you reply to someone's content,
the reason you quote the previous message is so that you can provide some
degree of contextual continuity. The best way to do this is to interleave what
you're quoting with your responses to that particular piece. That means that
you should provide a quoted portion, then address what the points therein,
then another quoted section, etc.
For example, here's how followup replies *should* look if you'd
like them to be more effective.
> Joe said we should eat noodles.
But I don't like noodles. They are a pain to prepare -- remember that what started this thread was how to cook using only a microwave, not real cooking -- and they provide you with very little sustenance in the long run. It's like eating cardboard, nutritionally speaking.
> He also suggests adding anchovies.
What is this fish fetish? Not all of us like the little minnows with the
lingering briny taste swimming around our mouths for the next few hours or
days. Can you imagine this on a date? Iccccch!
Notice how in the text above, alternate quoted passages are interleaved with
new response text. Notice also that the new text far exceeds the old text.
This is the way it should be.
If you are receiving this message in response to a news posting, please
understand that all modern newsreaders provide a mechanism to fetch the parent
article, so it is seldom necessary to quote the whole thing. Sometimes even
mail readers provide this, depending on the mail headers and the list archival
mechanism on your own system.
Here's a section from the essential netiquette guide, "A Primer on How to Work
With the Usenet Community", which is available in news.announce.newusers.
Perhaps your service provider neglected to point you at this newsgroup before
you got swallowed up by all of Usenet. It's not only a good read; it's
critical to understanding the culture you're now moving in.
Summarize What You are Following Up.
When you are following up someone's article, please summarize the parts of the
article to which you are responding. This allows readers to appreciate your
comments rather than trying to remember what the original article said. It is
also possible for your response to get to some sites before the original
article.
Summarization is best done by including appropriate quotes from the original
article. Do not include the entire article since it will irritate the people
who have already seen it. Even if you are responding to the entire article,
summarize only the major points you are discussing.
It's even more annoying when people needlessly quote the original's automatic
trailing matter, like signatures, adverts, or disclaimers. Please don't do
that.
I'm honestly not trying to annoy you! I'm just trying to give tips about what
works well in electronic messages, and what doesn't. This used to be standard
fare before one got a Usenet account, but now something seems to be lost.
-----
My trasnlation: It's rude.
> /opt is a de-facto standard. By usage. By tradition. By habit. By convence.
Right, all the wrong reasons. Windows is the standard OS. By usage. By
tradition. By Habit. By convenience. Doesn't make it the best choice in any
given situation.
When something is a de-facto standard for those reasons alone, it should
be questioned and challenged based on the *OTHER* standards we have which all
have logical reasons. Through the course of all of this you and a few other
people have tried to brow beat me with this stupid rhetoric. In the last
batch two people came up with very valid legal and technical reasons for /opt.
They have achieved in two messages what you could not in, what, 10? Learn
from it. Unless you have what I ask for, please, just don't reply. I don't
think asking for a valid *TECHNICAL* reason was cause for so much BS from you
and others.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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