-=> On 07-24-19 12:35, Nightfox wrote to echicken <=-

 Ni>   Re: BIG DEAL
 Ni>   By: echicken to HusTler on Wed Jul 24 2019 12:39 pm

 ec> Sometimes this is fine. Other times it obfuscates the source, making it
 ec> seem as if the quote is attributed to the person you're replying to.
 ec> Putting words in their mouth, in a sense. Or confusing other people who
 ec> are following the thread.

 Ni> You can sorta tell that the quote might not be who they're replying to
 Ni> if there are multiple levels of quote characters (i.e., 2 '>'
 Ni> characters instead of 1), but it can make it a little confusing if
 Ni> you're casually reading messages.  I find it a little bothersome when I
 Ni> get messages addressed to me in reply to things I didn't say (and the
 Ni> other person might not see that message becaues it wasn't addressed to
 Ni> them).

Or in this example above, if the attributions are preserved, and your software
initials quotes like Multimail (which I'm using) does, it's not hard to follow
at all.

 Ni> I agree.  I've read newsgroups where all the messages are addressed to
 Ni> 'All' and sometimes it can be hard to tell who is addressing who (and
 Ni> natrually, none of those messages come up in a new-to-me message scan).
 Ni>  Sometimes I've mentioned in those newsgroups about people addressing
 Ni> the right person, but sometimes they laugh it off..  I'm not sure if
 Ni> some newsgroups work differently where they have to address their
 Ni> messages to 'All'.

The to "All" on gated newsgroups is because BBSs need something in that To
field, and "All" makes the most sense.  On the Usenet side, there is no To:
field.  Articles are simply "posted" to the group by the From: author, like
putting up a notice on a public notice board.

 Ni> Yep.  Quoting helps people follow the flow of the conversation.
 Ni> Another thing I've noticed happening more often lately is people
 Ni> replying and not quoting, and sometimes it's really hard to remember
 Ni> what they're talking about.

That is particularly annoying, because there's no context to what's being said,
which leads to a lot of misunderstandings.


... It was completely quiet in the stadium - but noisy.
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