On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 11:29:00 -0500 (EST), Joshua Baker-LePain
<jlb17@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I'm sorry, but making decisions based on Stupid User Tricks is about
> the worst policy I can imagine. That way lies madness.
No, where lies madness is in the self-centred way in which some
people make demands of others to alter innocuous behaviour so that
the data requirements of some MUA or other, that may or may not
support generally accepted conventions , that may or may not be
suitably configured, might be satisfied.
I read mailing lists as digests. Message threading is of no use to
me outside of threaded web archives, that I seldom use in such
fashion. Neither is the subject content of much significance
beyond keying me as to whether some section of a digest may be of
particular interest. This is not to say that these features have
no value, only that my circumstances realize little any from them.
However, I have been taken to task nonetheless, because my personal
preferences do not meet with the approval of some. It is this
presumption that irritates me.
I am not a member of this list simply to ease the administrative
burdens that some people create for themselves. I seek information
and informed opinion on technical issues related to the equipment I
am responsible for and the vocation I profess, not quasi-religious
debates on the morality of certain widely held but hardly universal
conventions. I sometimes (rarely) am in the possession of a piece
of information that may prove helpful to another, and so I offer on
occasion. However, in the main this list is my way of reaching
beyond my own ignorance. Usually I am in the position of
supplicant and I have found the people on this list generally as
helpful and usually as well informed as other lists that I
frequent.
But I am concerned about the general tenor of some of the
discussions here and how these may lead to ill-feeling in some and
a disinclination to actively participate in others. We are all
infinitely ignorant, it is just that some of us possess a
predisposition to stay within that which we find familiar and
others find it easier to take adventures.
Neither tendency is good or bad, they are just personal
preferences. It would be more comfortable for the list membership,
and improve the decorum of the messages considerably, if people
from one camp or the other, and the many of us that straddle both
albeit on different issues, displayed a willingness to accommodate
the other side and recognize that there are many important reasons,
not all of which we may agree with, why someone chooses to do
things a certain way.
Complaining about people's email habits, particularly in public,
where the content is not the issue strikes me as pointless, self-
indulgent in the extreme, and reflects most poorly on the
personality of the complainant.
Sincerely,
Jim
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