[GRLUG] Social norms

[john-thomas richards]

On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 11:09:23AM -0400, Benjamin Flanders wrote:
> What is the social norm.  Isn't that where the normal is commonly
> agreed upon?  Is placing responses interspersed throughout the e-mail
> commonly agreed upon?

Wow.  How about breaking this "norm..."  You responded to a message in
the middle of a thread, broke the thread (so my mail reader no longer
knows this post is part of an existing thread), and changed the subject
header even though the subject - while evolving - did not really
change.  *That* makes an extended conversation difficult.

Placing responses throughout an email facilitates conversation.  When
speaking face to face you do not tell another five different, perhaps
unrelated things and receive one response for all five topics, do you?
You say something, I respond.  You say something else about something
else, I respond.  The closer written communication follows *natural
conversation* the better.  When I and others insist on following the
established rules of online communication we are really insisting that
written conversations resemble spoken conversations while those who
oppose those rules want to communicate in a manner that is not
intuitive or natural.  Bottom-posting and in-line posting mimics spoken
communication and is far more efficient than one large, combined
response to multiple issues at the top.

> Personally I don't like having to scroll through the whole e-mail to
> look for responses.  Sometimes, the response is hidden by the ">" of
> the previous empty line.  I prefer top posting.  No scrolling, the
> responses all right there.

There is no scrolling *IF* you remember what the post is in response to.
I seriously doubt you never scroll when reading a top-posted response,
unless your memory is far better than mine.

Some do not include a line break between the quoted text and the
response.  This is annoying.

> Since this group is divided on this topic, could we consider one way
> or the other a "social norm"?  I don't think so.  I think we need to
> just overlook the differing styles of responses and discuss what those
> responses are about.

Thirty years of USENET determined that bottom-posting better
facilitates communication.  Since this community is essentially an
online community (the recent monthly meetings notwithstanding) it makes
sense to follow the established rules of communication.

[snip]
-- 
john-thomas
------
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a
troublesome servant and a fearful master.  Never for a moment should it be
left to irresponsible action.
George Washington, first US President (1732-1799)