One of the problems I have seen emerge on many IETF mailing lists is the habit of fisking.
By fisking I mean responding to a post line by line *while reading it for the first time*.
Now sometimes a line by line response is entirely appropriate. If someone raises six different issues, you want to respond to each one separately. But other times I see posts of the following form:
> We should buy the red van
Are you crazy, the last three vans were yellow. Only an idiot would buy a red van (etc)
> Because even though yellow is traditional the red one is on sale for $1000 off.
I seem to be reading an increasing number of posts on various lists where it is very clear to me that the poster did not bother to read the entire message before starting their reply. In particular I have read rather a lot of people starting off by accusing their opponent of being ignorant of issues that their opponent actually states only a few paragraphs further on.
Traditionally, top-posting (or bottom posting) has been discouraged in favor of responding line by line. I think it is time to reverse that preference.
In particular I find that arguments are often less combative and somewhat shorter in mediums where people are forced to restate the issue they are objecting to in their own words.
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf