Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 15:01:42 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Quoting, plus some comments about reading email
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 09:46 AM 4/22/05, Candy Madigan wrote:

>At 11:42 PM 4/21/2005, you wrote:
> >At 12:50 PM 4/21/05, Gayle Surrette wrote:
> > >Except I've been top posting for the last 35 years and when I started
> > >top posting was the standard and in many places my last 10 jobs it
> > >was required for internal email.  So I have to wonder where this
> > >netiquette issue developed.
> >
> >I just checked with a friend who administered the first node of the BITNET,
> >at City College (and, obviously, was working with networked computers well
> >before that).  From the time that there was software that quoted replies
> >were written under the quotation.
> >
> >Elspeth
>
>Who effing cares!  It is a matter of convenience.  It is sometimes more
>convenient to post at the top, and sometimes more convenient to post at the
>bottom, and sometimes more convenient to intersperse.  In this post, it
>makes more sense to post at the bottom because the first person who replied
>chose the bottom.  If the first person to reply had chosen the top, then
>*that* would have made more sense.  Come on guys, we're not computers we
>are capable of actual thought.  Ghod gave us brain cells for a reason.

Obviously, Candy, I "effing care" or I wouldn't have written it.  People
were talking about when the convention of bottom posting started so I did a
bit of research and passed it along.  I didn't expect to be sworn at as a
result.

In fact, the level of animosity in this whole thread confuses me.  As I
recall, it started because of a polite request that people follow the
convention of the WSFA list and bottom post.  Many although not all -- the
one I quote above, for example -- of the responses of the three people who
do it most often were quite defensive.  I don't know why they felt that
they were being attacked but obviously they did.

Which is regrettable.  Not only did they wind up feeling abused but the
history of the internet and its precursors is interesting and we have a
number of people here who've been involved in it for a long time.  Or who,
like me, haven't been but know a fair bit about it.  The discussion could
have been a good one.

It might be helpful if people start with the assumption that things are
written in good faith and not assume the worst of what is written or the
writer.  There have been a couple of times on this list when a conversation
veered wildly because someone saw observations as an attack.  There was one
when someone who was quite knowledgeable analyzed a WSFA publication and
the person who'd created it responded angrily; he was pretty stressed out
at the time.  Once he saw that it wasn't an attack and was, indeed, a
compliment in that the person who'd written cared enough about his work to
look at it carefully, a very useful discussion ensued.  Layout, font types
and sizes, the visual presentation of information, and other such matters
came into it.

In Capclave discussions recently there's been another case where various
people took comments on their work as criticism in the sense of "The act of
criticizing, especially adversely" when it was in the sense of:

1. The practice of analyzing, classifying, interpreting, or evaluating
literary or other artistic works.
2. A critical article or essay; a critique.
3. The investigation of the origin and history of literary documents;
textual criticism.

(The American HeritageŽ Dictionary)

One person withdrew from the project as a result of not understanding
this.  The other, it seems, thought things through and then applied what
had been said to the project.  The change from the first draft is
impressive and the result is something that, while it needs a bit of
tweaking, is quite good.

Again, it was a matter of people caring enough about what someone had done
to take the time to look it over and comment extensively.  Unfortunately
most of us aren't good about giving the positive as well as the negative
and, on the other side, most of us hear the negative much more strongly
than the positive.

Elspeth