Very Computer

I have been slammed for various "offenses" as have many of you as well.
What the hell is the problem when there is a discussion going on, people
are making good points, the exchange of ideas is happening, then,
suddenly, someone posts something, and it is usually one of a few
points:

(1) HTML in your messages.
(2) You, god forbid, didn't trim enough of the message to which you are
responding.
(3) Someone takes issue with your sig.
(4) Your news posting program didn't wrap the long lines.

Yes I understand why there are favorable positions to take on issues,
but, come on, they are stupid little gripes and do not belong as part of
the debate. The only purpose to bring them up is to be superior to the
person to which you are posting the comment.

--
Mohawk Software
Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
Visit the Mohawk Software website: www.mohawksoft.com

Justified.  Some of us use newsreaders in which your HTML is just
plain unreadable and annoying.  Some newsreaders can automatically
chop off HTML *attachments* and some newsreaders can interpret HTML
but that's quite beside the point.  Like you say yourself: concentrate
on content and don't post HTML or Javascript crap.

Quote:> (2) You, god forbid, didn't trim enough of the message to which you are
> responding.

Justified.  Some of us don't have time to wade through pages of quoted
text, only to find some irrelevant comment at the end.  Geez man, I
think you should go back and read news.announce.newusers or something.

Quote:> (3) Someone takes issue with your sig.

There was nothing wrong with your sig.  Mark was an absolute twit and
admitted so.

Quote:> (4) Your news posting program didn't wrap the long lines.

Sigh.  Go read news.announce.newusers to understand why people
complain about this.

Quote:> but, come on, they are stupid little gripes and do not belong as part of
> the debate. The only purpose to bring them up is to be superior to the
> person to which you are posting the comment.

No.  Does a good font compared to a small unreadable crappy font make
a difference to you?  Does a pure note compared to the corresponding
piano note make a difference to you?

Generally, I try to read your articles.

-N.
--
http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~navindra/editors/

This is exactly my point. I know "why" each of these things are
"important" but, that is not the issue. And it wasn't just about me, I
have seen this sort of comment regularly.

My point is, yes these things are annoying, sure, but so is bad breath,
poor grammer, bad foreign accents, generally ugly people, poor taste in
clothing, bad relationships, religeous views, politics, Ellen
Degenerous, hotbot commercials, the new volkswagon bugs, old people that
forget the blinker, most marketing people, all car salesmen, Dennis
Rodman, taxi drivers, airports, post office workers, the IRS, "Sale
price after rebate," almost all MIT graduates, the phone company, TIAC,
should I go on?

Get over it guys. People/things are, in general, annoying! One must get
beyond this crap. If your news reader has trouble with HTML, that is far
from the person who posted the article's fault.

Wrapped, lines, most viewers have a check box that says, "Wrap long
lines." If it doesn't who's fault is that? Is it mine for producing
something you can't read or yours for not having something that can read
what I post? (This is a rhetorical question)

.sig files? Hey, I like mine.

Not snipping enough, hey sorry, life is like that some times. It could
be worse, you could be the president of the US or live in IRAQ. Either
way your screwed.

--
Mohawk Software
Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
Visit the Mohawk Software website: www.mohawksoft.com

Quote:> Guvf vf rknpgyl zl cbvag. V xabj "jul" rnpu bs gurfr guvatf ner
> "vzcbegnag" ohg, gung vf abg gur vffhr. Naq vg jnfa'g whfg nobhg zr,
> V unir frra guvf fbeg bs pbzzrag erthyneyl.

Lrf, vg vf nofbyhgryl gur vffhr.  Lbh pnaabg whqtr pbagrag vs lbh
pna'g rira te0x gur pbagrag.  Now imagine if this was encoded in
something significantly harder to decode.

Quote:> Get over it guys. People/things are, in general, annoying! One must get
> beyond this crap. If your news reader has trouble with HTML, that is far
> from the person who posted the article's fault.

No, it is your crappy news reader's fault for not following the
general etiquette.

Quote:> Wrapped, lines, most viewers have a check box that says, "Wrap long
> lines." If it doesn't who's fault is that? Is it mine for producing
> something you can't read or yours for not having something that can read
> what I post? (This is a rhetorical question)

It is your newsreader's fault first, and yours second for not
fixing or admitting to the problem.

Quote:> be worse, you could be the president of the US or live in IRAQ. Either
> way your screwed.

What is the point of coming on Usenet and pissing everyone else off by
willing using a broken newsreader?

-N.
--
http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~navindra/editors/

I totally disagree.  By the way, I hate your sig.  How many times do I
have to look at it anyway?

:-)

--
Tim Kelley

New Orleans, LA

   There's an easy solution to that, you know.

   It's known as a killfile.

                 ____
   david parsons \bi/ And, yes, I'm afraid you *do* have a very stupid
                  \/                                         signature.

It's a matter of style.  :-)

BTW:  4 of your 8 topics are already covered in the Frequently Rehashed
Topics FAQ.

I know, another small nitpick,
--Persona

Because it completely stops *any* communication.  The poster usually doesn't
know there is HTML in his post.  Anybody with any sense will stop posting
this way when it's pointed out.

Quote:>(2) You, god forbid, didn't trim enough of the message to which you are
>responding.

Because it's annoying and hinders communication.

Quote:>(3) Someone takes issue with your sig.

Don't use a sig if you don't want people commenting on it.

Quote:>(4) Your news posting program didn't wrap the long lines.

Because it's annoying and hinders communication.

Dave Cook

You know this just proves what I have been saying. What I wrote was
largely rhetorical and yet, the respondents harp on how I'm wrong, etc,
etc.

The point I am making, yet again, is that this is like a the standard
monday morning engineering meeting. Why does it have to so petty and nit
picking. You all have good reasons for wanting people to do things a
specific way, and you are all sure you are right, but, you know, you may
not be. Perhaps more than a few people like HTML? Hey, think about it --
it is basically the usual suspects complaining, and frankly I am at the
point now were I think the nazi attitude is too much.

This isn't about me, I read posts where someone is trying to make a
point and the only response to the post is "Hey bozo, fix your news
reader so that it wraps lines." Most first timers don't know the that it
is an option.

I know my sig has come under attack, well, I think you all know what I
think of that, but, let me ask you, besides "It's stupid" what
constructive criticism can you articulate gods of the net offer?
Seriously, articulate, obviously superior, urbane people, like
yourselves, must be able to search the old vocabulary for words to
specify an objection, other than the completely arbitrary (and
meaningless) "It's stupid."

I think there are a few people here that like the debate, but, if all
you can offer is "hey man, I hate your sig" then yes, I would gladly go
into your killfile, because, hey, you make it clear that you would
rather resort to name calling, and nit picking than exchange ideas for
the advocacy of Linux. (Which is my primary reason for (rightly)
participating on this group.)

Yup, here it is in all its glory: (Imagine if you will dancing penguins,
or small animated gif fireworks)
--
Mohawk Software
Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
Visit the Mohawk Software website: www.mohawksoft.com

P.S.
Can we stop this *and talk about cool stuff like SMP, World
domination, KDE vs GNOME, Modular kernels, SCSI emulation vs raw ATAPI
as default, egcs vs gcc, will gcc ever be fixed, and how to make linux
better.

So you can make *your* point, but we can't make ours?  Why don't you find a
brick wall to talk at.

Quote:>not be. Perhaps more than a few people like HTML?

Usually it's someone with misconfigured newsreader.  Knowingly posting HTML
is pigheaded and rude.  

Quote:>Hey, think about it --
>it is basically the usual suspects complaining, and frankly I am at the
>point now were I think the nazi attitude is too much.

This is childish rhetoric.  

Quote:>point and the only response to the post is "Hey bozo, fix your news
>reader so that it wraps lines." Most first timers don't know the that it
>is an option.

That's fine.  Let them fix their broken newsreader and then they can post
about cool topics to their hearts content.

Quote:>I know my sig has come under attack,

I think you have some kind of martyr complex.

Quote:>specify an objection, other than the completely arbitrary (and
>meaningless) "It's stupid."

Your sig is unneccessary.  If you want to advertise your site, put it in
the Organization header.

There will always be someone new to come along and complain about your sig
(I don't care about it one way or the other, BTW.)  Either get rid of it or
stop whining.

Quote:>Can we stop this *and talk about cool stuff like SMP, World

You're the one who brings up the trivial subjects.

Dave Cook

[...]

Quote:>Perhaps more than a few people like HTML? Hey, think about it --
>it is basically the usual suspects complaining, and frankly I am at the
>point now were I think the nazi attitude is too much.

You're missing the point here. The reason for the overall "no-HTML"
rule is really simple: Usenet has much more participants than just
those sitting on a graphical terminal. There are tens of thousands
of text terminals in use, and forcing them to wade through useless
HTML tags is more than annoying - it's counter-productive. After all,
the whole sense behind posting article is to present one's problems
to the biggest audience possible.

Quote:>This isn't about me, I read posts where someone is trying to make a
>point and the only response to the post is "Hey bozo, fix your news
>reader so that it wraps lines." Most first timers don't know the that it
>is an option.

[...]

Bad manners. No excuse, but did you ever have to manually edit an article
you wanted to followup onto that had non-wrapped lines ? I have to
do it all the time, and it's excessively annoying.

Michael
--

          Lumber Cartel Unit #456 (TINLC) & Official Netscum

Opinion is a wonderful thing, everyone has a different one.

Quote:

> >I know my sig has come under attack,

> I think you have some kind of martyr complex.

No, it is not a "martyr complex," but, it is like discussing something
and suddenly someone pipes up, "yea, and your mother...." It is a
pointless statement and has no place in a discussion of advocacy.

Quote:> >specify an objection, other than the completely arbitrary (and
> >meaningless) "It's stupid."

> Your sig is unneccessary.  If you want to advertise your site, put it in
> the Organization header.

The object is to have people see it. Like it or not, I am living in a
world where "hunting/gathering" involves little green pieces of paper
which can be traded for food, shelter, etc.

Quote:> There will always be someone new to come along and complain about your sig
> (I don't care about it one way or the other, BTW.)  Either get rid of it or
> stop whining.

I'm not whining, I am trying to point out that sort of behavior in real
conversation is unacceptable, why is it OK here. Don't you think it is
uncivilized?

Quote:

> >Can we stop this *and talk about cool stuff like SMP, World

> You're the one who brings up the trivial subjects.

I "bring it up" because I cam constantly following a thread, and hit one
of this nit picking comments. The poster must then respond, and suddenly
the topic of the thread is lost.

Think of it like this:

Einstein: "I think we can solve many problems by assuming light speed is
constant."
bozo:     "Hey, turn of HTML you jerk"
Einstein: "Can we get back to the point?"
bozo:     "Nice, sig go away troll"

Does this seem like a productive conversation, of course not. Admittedly
I took a few liberties with the expletives ;-)

--
Mohawk Software
Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
Visit the Mohawk Software website: www.mohawksoft.com