[Ilugc] issues with top and bottom posting
- From: knura9@xxxxxxxxx (Arun Khan)
- Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2012 20:03:26 +0530
On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 9:47 PM, Shrinivasan T <tshrinivasan at gmail.com> wrote:
.... snip ....
I am not getting this regulations, in office and in most of the other lists.
If there are regular inspection on how I am replying, I will be just a
reader than contributor"
Let us suppose that the office imposes certain guidelines regarding
email etiquette that are contrary to your "email habit" ; are you
going to flout those regulations? Probably not :)
Nobody is inspecting any one's responses, but it is exposing your
attitude that you are not willing to learn or change your habit.
My early experience in mailing lists was similar but after reading
properly formatted responses, I realized the value it added to the
discussions and changed my response style to the guide lines in place
be it office, mailing lists, or web forums.
These are the words I am hearing from many people for years.
And perhaps for many more years because there will always be guys who
do not want to change or learn to respect the guidelines.
If we are constantly regulating the writing style, I fear that we may
loss many list contributors and useful discussions.
Writing style can vary from person to person and their command over
the language. In the days when USENET was the place for technical
discussions, there were folks who could not write proper English but
they respected the guidelines and managed to get their point across.
I think we need to do something to remove the fears of the list
members to write to list.
This is the *only* list where I read that people are fearful to post.
Who are these people and what exactly are they afraid of?
If their fear is centered around breaking the guidelines (inspite of
so many helpful links being given every time this topic comes up) then
I would say they are afraid of speaking in *any* public forum not just
mailing lists. IMO, they need to enroll themselves into public
speaking workshops to overcome this fear.
No Pain, No Gain.
What should we have to do?
We go through this discussion about every six months :) For people
to have a meaningful experience, they must realize they need to follow
the guidelines. Otherwise they are sending the wrong message "The
guidelines are for the general public, I am special (aka very busy
person) and it does not apply to me"
IMO, such people are looking for a one way change, you accept my way
of working - never mind that I agreed to the guidelines when I
subscribed to the list.
IMO, this is a manifestation of a general attitude, of the public at
large and you can see it everywhere (not just mailing lists), for
example:
People jump the queues.
People jump the red signal @ intersections and curse at the driver who
has the right of way!
People in the local train, quite far away from the office but telling
their boss they will be in the office within 5 mins.
The "B.E." degree holder expects to be given a step by step
instructions to do the job
... You can add your anecdotes here ...
My 10 paise.
-- Arun Khan
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