Subject: email posting and quoting styles (or the lack thereof)

From: Juergen Schoenwaelder <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 13:29:39 +0200

Hi,

I am increasingly struggling with reading WG emails where people use
posting and quoting styles that seem totally ad-hoc and that are
difficult for people that use tools that have a history that goes back
into the last century. Perhaps I am just getting old and I simply have
to accept that style is changing and the tools I am using are, well,
from the last century.

But then, the lack of proper and consistent quoting I see in WG emails
has reached a level where it causes me meanwhile quite some effort to
follow discussions. Is this just me? If not, how do you deal with it?
Tell people privately that their messages are difficult for others
to read? Or is this an uphill battle not worth investing any cycles
on?

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder           Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
Phone: +49 421 200 3587         Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany
Fax:   +49 421 200 3103         <http://www.jacobs-university.de/>

---

From: "MORTON, ALFRED C (AL)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 07:50:33 -0400

Hi Juergen, (sorry for the top-post)

It's not just you, I had to migrate from a tool with features
I really liked to this one, MSLookOut (which isn't as bad as it
was in the last century and has some nice but different features).
For me, it was more than the quoting styles, I was receiving 
messages with no apparent end-of-line formatting and other issues.

I had to find an option to get the  "> " quoting I preferred (below),
and other options.  What I miss most is the ability to highlight
a portion of a message, such as a single question, and respond
only to that (the reply would start with "Juergen wrote:", 
and then the highlighted text, quoted).
I haven't found that in the current tool.

I still see many cases where it's hard to find the reply, and I suspect
folks using other tools are seeing LF/CR in places that don't 
display on my screen. 

I think we could do better, perhaps starting
with asking people to take a look at how their messages appear in
the archive and check if they can find their own comments easily?

regards,
Al

> -----Original Message-----
> From: WGChairs [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Juergen
> Schoenwaelder
> Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2014 7:30 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: email posting and quoting styles (or the lack thereof)
> 
> Hi,
>

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2014 09:07:34 -0400

see inline

    > to accept that style is changing and the tools I am using are, well,

I also use the same vintage tools.   I am equally frustrated.

My one compromise is often write "see inline" in the top-quote spot.

While it is a bit of an ad-hominem view, I find that peoplewho use poor
tools, or who do not take the time to configure their tools sensibly, have
less interesting things to say.  As a participant in a WG where there are incomprehensible
messages, I feel free to use the 'd' key and simply go on with my life.

As a WG chair, I have on occasion, reformatted the entire message so that I
(and others) can understand it.  It sure takes time, but I type fast.  I
don't feel I can just ignore poorly formatted messages as a chair.

I have friends who go on about how insensitive I am, and how it's other
people's convention, and it is just a convention, and how dare I judge anyone
else.  I would, if I could reply to them in Klingon or something, only I
don't speak that language.

    > Tell people privately that their messages are difficult for others to
    > read? Or is this an uphill battle not worth investing any cycles on?

I believe that the longer-than-77 chars text/plain messages which do not not
say "format=flowed" should be rejected by ietf.org mailing list servers. (Or
we should change 5822 and the mime specs to say that this is now the default)

--
]               Never tell me the odds!                 | ipv6 mesh networks [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works        | network architect  [
]     [email-masked]  http://www.sandelman.ca/        |   ruby on rails    [

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-

---

From: "MORTON, ALFRED C (AL)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 09:17:25 -0400

> From: WGChairs [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Michael
> Richardson
...
> don't speak that language.

I thought there must be a translator site, there are many
http://www.mrklingon.org/
http://www.kli.org/
...
<insert Klingon salutation>
Al

---

From: "Andrew McLachlan (amclachl)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 13:39:52 +0000

Perhaps the problem is that email is now last century and we should migrate threads / conversations / user forums etc to a new platform more of this century.

---

From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 14:59:14 +0100

On 7 May 2014 14:39, Andrew McLachlan (amclachl) <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Perhaps the problem is that email is now last century and we should
> migrate threads / conversations / user forums etc to a new platform more of
> this century.
>
>
There are days it might be quite nice to limit everyone's messages to 140
characters.

---

From: "Andrew McLachlan (amclachl)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 14:11:07 +0000

Dave - indeed :)

What I would like:

is a backend that allows me to subscribe to groups/list/tags so that I can see the information that I want.
the ability to see / interact / respond with threads and conversations via a browser or other app / client  (and I don’t mean email)
to have a profile on the IETF site, one which I can also use for things like registering for the IETF, I’m so tired of filling out that form each and every time and so is everyone I know.
I would like notifications of the things that I have subscribed to, and have them show up on ’thing’ that I own

In short something more applicable to the way information is being consumed today.

What I would like is to be able to subscribe

On 7 May 2014, at 14:59, Dave Cridland <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

On 7 May 2014 14:39, Andrew McLachlan (amclachl) <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
Perhaps the problem is that email is now last century and we should migrate threads / conversations / user forums etc to a new platform more of this century.

There are days it might be quite nice to limit everyone's messages to 140 characters.

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2014 10:37:13 -0400

It's not just you that has noticed and laments that it is increasingly
hard to follow responses in messages...

But I suspect this is at least partly a lost cause. :-(

No doubt a significant factor is more and more folk are
reading/writing email on tables and phones. There are real limitations
there, especially with phones.

To be constructive, it would be interesting to look at what MUAs folk
are actually using and see if there are ways to configure them better
for our needs, and provide a cookbook for folk that are willing to
make those changes.

Thomas

---

From: Christopher Morrow <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 10:45:59 -0400

> But I suspect this is at least partly a lost cause. :-(

we could deprecate MIME usage in email, in like an RFC or something.
plain text, only.

we could also enforce no top-posting through automation.

> there, especially with phones.

writing email on tables? I hope not... that seems destructive, and
anti-social. Plus, how would I be able to find/read this email written
on the table? never mind keeping straight which table to read first?

would the writers upload pictures of these tables to instagram so we
could follow along there?

> for our needs, and provide a cookbook for folk that are willing to

that sounds delightful, and horrible.

I think sadly that people lost out on the idea that being able to
follow a conversation is worthwhile in email threads... and
top-posting is 'easy' in too many MUAs.

-chris

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 09:47:15 -0500

> There are days it might be quite nice to limit everyone's messages to 140 characters. 

There's been a lot of talk in the media lately about twitter's failure to continue to grow.   Perhaps there's some synergy here.

---

From: Paul Kyzivat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2014 10:55:24 -0400

> for our needs, and provide a cookbook for folk that are willing to

This does seem like a good idea.

It is clear that people are using different styles. To some extent this 
may be constrained by what the tools they use support, or what the tools 
they use establish as defaults. We won't get people to change the tools 
they use for email - some have no choice and others have deeply 
ingrained habits. But I suspect a lot of people would *like* to make 
things better and would consider making option changes within their 
tools if they knew which changes would be helpful.

Part of the problem is that each of us sees the effects through our own 
email tool. We don't know how what we send appears to other people. Most 
probably assume it looks the same to others as it does to us. But often 
that won't be the case.

	Thanks,
	Paul

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2014 10:55:25 -0400

> writing email on tables?

OK, so I can't spell tablet. Probably because I don't use one.

> top-posting is 'easy' in too many MUAs.

Well, that is most likely the real (and bigger) problem. Many people
are quick to post superficially without seeming to carefully read what
others write and trying to understand where they are coming from. My
sense is that this problem has gotten worse in recent years. It has
made having discussion through email quite a bit more challenging than
it used to be. 

Thomas

---

From: Paul Kyzivat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2014 11:28:32 -0400

> made having discussion through email quite a bit more challenging than

It's the younger generation!

Only us old folks think and converse in units greater than 140 bytes. :-)

	Thanks,
	Paul

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2014 11:58:36 -0400

> is a backend that allows me to subscribe to groups/list/tags so that I
    > can see the information that I want.  the ability to see / interact /
    > respond with threads and conversations via a browser or other app /
    > client (and I don’t mean email) to have a profile on the IETF site, one
    > which I can also use for things like registering for the IETF, I’m so
    > tired of filling out that form each and every time and so is everyone I
    > know.  I would like notifications of the things that I have subscribed
    > to, and have them show up on ’thing’ that I own

Yes, I also wish that the IETF used NNTP for it's dicussions.

---

From: "Susan Hares" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 14:18:43 -0400

Al and Juergen:

I've changed styles because I really dislike the ">" after it goes past one
level deep.

Seu

-----Original Message-----
From: WGChairs [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of MORTON,
ALFRED C (AL)
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2014 7:51 AM
To: Juergen Schoenwaelder; [email-masked]
Subject: RE: email posting and quoting styles (or the lack thereof)

It's not just you, I had to migrate from a tool with features I really liked
to this one, MSLookOut (which isn't as bad as it was in the last century and
has some nice but different features).
For me, it was more than the quoting styles, I was receiving messages with
no apparent end-of-line formatting and other issues.

I had to find an option to get the  "> " quoting I preferred (below), and
other options.  What I miss most is the ability to highlight a portion of a
message, such as a single question, and respond only to that (the reply
would start with "Juergen wrote:", and then the highlighted text, quoted).
I haven't found that in the current tool.

I still see many cases where it's hard to find the reply, and I suspect
folks using other tools are seeing LF/CR in places that don't display on my
screen. 

I think we could do better, perhaps starting with asking people to take a
look at how their messages appear in the archive and check if they can find
their own comments easily?

regards,
Al

---

From: Jeffrey Haas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 14:28:54 -0400

> we could deprecate MIME usage in email, in like an RFC or something.

Frankly, MIME isn't the problem.  I regularly exchange mail with people
across MUAs on many platforms and they handle quoting perfectly fine.  The
only outlier is MS-Outlook which seems to refuse to permit blockquote
mechanisms of some form and force people to self-decorate what appears to be
someone else's text.

That's what I really object to - not being able to follow what's a quote and
what isn't.

> we could also enforce no top-posting through automation.

Even I could take or leave this one depending on context.  Getting people to
better trim excess prior context  is more important, IMO.

(And I've been on mailing lists that have bounced messages saying "this
message has been held for moderation due to excessive quoting".)

I suspect most of our problems would go away if we could get Outlook to
behave like most other MUAs on the planet for text-plain content.

-- Jeff

---

From: Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 14:12:19 -0500

On May 7, 2014, at 9:55 AM, Paul Kyzivat <[email-masked]> wrote:

> It is clear that people are using different styles. To some extent this may be constrained by what the tools they use support, or what the tools they use establish as defaults. We won't get people to change the tools they use for email - some have no choice and others have deeply ingrained habits. But I suspect a lot of people would *like* to make things better and would consider making option changes within their tools if they knew which changes would be helpful.

Perhaps our diversity discussions should include email styles (I'm only partly joking.) I know people (and communities) that really hate in-line quoting, and get unhappy when you selectively quote because they can't find the entire context of the discussion. I personally hate hard line breaks (How dare people assume they know my window/screen size?). There are people (and communities) to which I try to always top-post, because I know they will not read past the quote attribution line.

It might help to offer some guidelines and suggested tool configurations. But probably the most important part is to remember the "liberal in what you accept" part of Postel's Law.

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 22:47:56 +0300

> Yes, I also wish that the IETF used NNTP for it's dicussions.

The sad think is, I can’t tell if your being sarcastic or not. But NNTP did get the job done.

---

From: "Andrew McLachlan (amclachl)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 20:10:32 +0000

Exactly what I was thinking too.

It seems the thread wants to focus on font styles.

Any chance as a group we can discuss something a little more progressive? This is supposed to be the Internet Engineering Task Force and not a font/format focus group. 

> On 7 May 2014, at 20:48, "Yoav Nir" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
>

---

From: Jeffrey Haas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 16:15:06 -0400

> It seems the thread wants to focus on font styles.

More on how do you distinguish participants in a conversation.

If this was a protocol, we'd be discussing the lack of proper encapsulation
of content by headers. :-)

-- Jeff (if they could get it right on Livejournal years ago, you'd think
the IETF would do better)

---

From: "MORTON, ALFRED C (AL)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 16:43:24 -0400

Sorry for the top-post and lack of quotes, 
this web-based access to MSLookOut doesn't 
access my preferences from the full client. (original thread)

One way to start would be to look at some examples of
progressive, modern, current-century collaboration and discussion facilities.
I ask because the one I've seen and used minimally would simply
never cut it here. The fact that sections of documents are referenced 
in most e-mail comments would mean that these two forms of expression
should be linked, somehow, in the new facility. And, the spam protection
would need to continue in its current and largely successful form.

this certainly seems worth examining further,
Al
________________________________________
From: WGChairs [[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Andrew McLachlan (amclachl) [[email-masked]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2014 4:10 PM
To: Yoav Nir
Cc: Michael Richardson; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: email posting and quoting styles (or the lack thereof)

---

From: Christopher Morrow <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 17:32:12 -0400

> The sad think is, I can’t tell if your being sarcastic or not. But NNTP
did get the job done.

Fair time to point out that mailman does gateway to netnews.

---

From: "Carlos Pignataro (cpignata)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 23:02:37 +0000

Be liberal in what you accept from others...

I disagree with comments on this thread that suggest blocking participants' comments because their posting style does not conform to some unwritten style guide. Sometimes, it is perfectly OK to top-post. Sometimes, it is quite appropriate and visual to see HTML bold instead of ascii *pretend bold* if your MUA allows.

Thanks,

Carlos.

On May 7, 2014, at 7:29 AM, Juergen Schoenwaelder <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

Hi,

/js

---

From: Thomas Nadeau <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 19:09:45 -0400

Carlos,

This whole thread is beyond silly...

Tom 

> On May 7, 2014, at 7:02 PM, "Carlos Pignataro (cpignata)" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
>> On May 7, 2014, at 7:29 AM, Juergen Schoenwaelder <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>>

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2014 19:47:08 -0400

Yoav Nir <[email-masked]> wrote:
    >>> is a backend that allows me to subscribe to groups/list/tags so that
    >>> I can see the information that I want.  the ability to see / interact
    >>> / respond with threads and conversations via a browser or other app /
    >>> client (and I don’t mean email) to have a profile on the IETF site,
    >>> one which I can also use for things like registering for the IETF,
    >>> I’m so tired of filling out that form each and every time and so is
    >>> everyone I know.  I would like notifications of the things that I
    >>> have subscribed to, and have them show up on ’thing’ that I own

    > The sad think is, I can’t tell if your being sarcastic or not. But NNTP

Those who forget the past are doomed to re-invent it.
I'm rather serious actually...

For all that I complain about web-based system that fail to let me work
offline, the decade of dialup (which I skipped, myself...) means that pretty
much every NNTP reader suppports offline reading, does the right thing wrt
threading and quoting, kill files, ... will even be DMARC tolerant.  And
there are plenty of web gateways that can be installed for that insist.

---

From: "Andrew McLachlan (amclachl)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 May 2014 09:08:35 +0000

Yep, next a bunch of folks will start a thread insisting that any solution supports email clients written back in the 1970’s and lynx / mosaic for browsers.

On 8 May 2014, at 00:09, Thomas Nadeau <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

Carlos,

Tom

On May 7, 2014, at 7:02 PM, "Carlos Pignataro (cpignata)" <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

Thanks,

Carlos.

Hi,

/js

---

From: "MORTON, ALFRED C (AL)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 May 2014 07:53:18 -0400

Or insist you only reply when your device has a down-arrow key.

Al
________________________________________
From: WGChairs [[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Andrew McLachlan (amclachl) [[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2014 5:08 AM
To: Thomas Nadeau
Cc: Carlos Pignataro (cpignata); [email-masked]
Subject: Re: email posting and quoting styles (or the lack thereof)

Carlos,

Tom

Thanks,

Carlos.

Hi,

/js